Latest / The Daily Writer / How to Use the Overlap Principle to Build Your Writing Business, Part 1: My Story

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How to Use the Overlap Principle to Build Your Writing Business, Part 1: My Story · The Daily Writer

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as you probably know, I recently stepped down from my full-time teaching position to do writing full-time.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the bulk of my time is now spent working on projects for clients since I'm a ghostwriter.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I also spend about a day and a half each week working on this podcast, writing my own material, and also leading the daily writer community.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm going to do an episode pretty soon about the details of why I quit my teaching job, but for now, I wanted to mention that in order to set the context for this episode.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most fascinating aspects of making this announcement recently about quitting my job is that a lot of people have congratulating me on making this leap to doing my business full time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And many people have expressed something like, you know, it's so great to be chasing your dreams, or that must be so nice to be able to do what you love.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And while I definitely appreciated these kind words, I've got to be honest with you, they also bothered me quite a bit.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why they bothered me is that I don't understand why it should be considered rare or unusual for somebody to chase their dreams or be able to arrange the kind of life that they want.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I've done anything all that spectacular or brave, to be honest with you.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I simply made a decision a few years ago to start building my business toward this direction, and then I stuck with it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I kept working at it week by week, month by month, year by year.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, after a few years, then I had what amounted to a full-time business.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty much all that I did.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was pretty much all that there was to it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty was not necessarily in picking the direction or in figuring out, you know, what could make income or that kind of thing.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty was just in continuing to do the work week in and week out and month in and month out and so forth.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: However, as I've spent some time reflecting on this major change in my life, it occurred to me that I followed a very simple practice as I have transitioned into several different roles in my work life over the last 25 years.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want to do is share that with you today, along with how you can put that into practice to build your writing business or whatever other adventures that you might eventually want to pursue.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, let me go back to this point of I don't feel like I've done anything brave or spectacular, or I don't think this should be unusual.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's interesting that the vast majority of people feel kind of stuck in their life.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the vast majority of people, I think a certain percentage of people are really unhappy with their life or they're really unhappy with their career or their current job.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people are okay with their job, but maybe they're not super excited about it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's there's a segment of people who are doing what they love and they they are happy with their compensation and so forth.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm doing this episode just to kind of share with you what I have done over the last, you know, probably like 25 or 30 years in my life, honestly, since I was a teenager, in terms of kind of moving a direction and then overlapping that with other kinds of things.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of brings me to the next point, which is this is called the overlap principle.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And on this episode, I want to share what the overlap principle is and also share my story of overlapping careers and vocations a few different times to arrive at my current business.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then on next week's Sunday episode, I want to share some specific tips for overlapping and using this overlap principle in your own writing business.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, let's dig into what is the overlap principle.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the overlap principle is essentially the idea that you don't just quit one thing and then start doing something new.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you overlap the two things so that you have a much smoother transition.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have your main job or your main gig, which is paying the bills.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the side, you start building your new thing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also commonly known as a side hustle.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a great guy named Nick Loper who has a podcast and a whole business around this idea of creating a side hustle.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he has helped a lot of people, including myself, figure out what that side hustle is and how to pursue it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's kind of essentially what we're talking about here, but I want to frame it a little differently because I think overlapping these different things uh frames it in a way where it's not as uh it doesn't feel as daunting and maybe it doesn't feel as heavy or as intimidating when you're you're simply overlapping these things.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this principle of overlap is definitely not original with me.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, to be totally honest with you, I never knowingly set out to use the overlap principle, so to speak.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But since my late 20s, I have always had a side gig of some kind going.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always been thinking of the new thing that I want to do or build.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've started doing it in a very small way at first, but then gradually doing it more and more and building it big enough that I can transition totally in that new direction.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, people have been doing side hustles probably since the beginning of time, but with the advent of online business the last two, three decades, they have really taken a huge new turn.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's far easier now to build a business on the side or to pursue whatever interests you have because we're all connected.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you have way more opportunity to do that these days.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all that said, I first became aware of this specific way to frame a side hustle called overlapping a few years ago when I read an excellent book by Sean McCabe, who is an entrepreneur, and his book is fittingly called Overlap, and you can get it at Seanwes.com slash book.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is S-E-A-N-W-E-S.com slash book.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And no, uh, I have not talked to him about this episode, and I'm not an affiliate or anything.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just know it's a really, really great book.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want the print book uh of his overlap book or the print version of it, it's only available in hardcover and it's$39.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that's kind of expensive for kind of a business hardback book.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I wish that he had it in paperback, but even still, if you get the hardback, it is worth every single penny and honestly a lot more because it's so, so good.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because he spells out specifically how to go about doing this.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in building a side hustle and overlapping your careers, it's really, I would consider it a totally essential book.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in this book, Sean McCabe teaches you the specifics of how to overlap your day job with your side hustle.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna let him speak for himself and his book, obviously.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But here in this episode, I want to share with you my story of how I've been overlapping careers for a long time.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then next week, on our episode on Sunday, a week from now, I'm going to lay out 10 ways or 10 tips that you can get started with overlapping.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: In reflecting back on my work life, I have noticed a distinct pattern over the last 25 years.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm 46 years old now.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be 47 next month.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I entered the full-time workforce back when I was 21.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this pattern has been happening for 25 years, really.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, even more than that if you count my college years and even in high school when I was getting started with some of these things.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the general pattern in my own life.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I do something for a few years, I get pretty good at it, and then I get bored and I start something on the side that is adjacent to the first idea, but it's also distinct.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually I move into that new area totally.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the pattern, after a while, repeats itself.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So let me share with you the story of how I went from being a worship pastor to a full-time ghostwriter.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: In 1992, I went to college to be a preaching pastor, and I felt a distinct spiritual calling to go in this direction.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: But truth be told, I wasn't that excited about preaching, even though I did feel called to it by God.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was decent at preaching, but what really got me excited was music and the arts.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had been an arts person ever since I was in junior high.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I remember in sixth grade, I played snare drum in our concert band in uh junior high, and I loved it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just hooked on music and the arts and performance and all that stuff.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, I didn't know that you could work in a church and do that stuff.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that you could be an arts or music pastor at a church.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: My only experience was growing up in a small country church of about 75 people, and our only employee at the church was a pastor whose name was Rick.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Rick was an amazing guy, and still to this day I have so much respect and admiration for him.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't know that you could do music in the arts for a job.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I felt a calling or an impulse to go into vocational or church, we call it vocational ministry.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of different kinds of ministry, but kind of in the church world, we say vocational ministry, meaning that's going to be your job.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt a calling to go in that direction.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the only kind of paid ministry that I was aware of was to be a preacher.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I went to do.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the degree program that I had signed up for.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, even though my college degree was in preaching, so I went through college and was very involved in music and the arts the whole time, but still was doing the preaching degree.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right after graduation, I got married and we moved to a church in northern Illinois where I was the worship pastor.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: My whole senior year of college, I was actually a preaching pastor.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And truth be told, I didn't really enjoy it and I wasn't very good at it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I found writing sermons to be kind of a chore, and um I didn't feel especially gifted at delivering those sermons, which you know should have been a major clue.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: But but yet I had kind of invested all this time and money into getting this degree, so I thought, well, I'm probably going to be a preacher and I'll just kind of learn to love it, which is that's a thing oftentimes we tell ourselves, well, I don't really enjoy this, but I surely I can learn to love it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the truth is that I never really did learn to love it and never got very good at it uh as far as preaching in a church.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple months after I graduated from college in 96, my wife Melanie and I got married and we moved to a church in northern uh church in northern Illinois where I was going to be the worship pastor.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this was a fantastic church, and we had a great ministry there.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: However, after about five years of doing this, I became restless and honestly got a little bit bored.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I started working with interns and I even taught a college course on worship and music uh while I still worked at the church.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I this course was actually for the church or for the college where I had gone to, and actually the college where I just left, actually, St.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College in Florescent, Missouri.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's where I went to school and it's where I have worked for the last 17 years.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I found when I was a worship pastor that I really enjoyed working with interns, I really enjoyed teaching and training.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was overlapping my worship ministry job with teaching and training people.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I enjoyed that so much that when the opportunity came to go back to St.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College and to be a professor there full-time, I jumped at that chance.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was 29, we moved back to St.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Louis so I could work at the school.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I led the music and worship program, which involved overseeing several adjunct instructors, teaching a bunch of courses, of course, and also coordinating our chapel services, which happened twice a week.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to be honest with you, it was exhausting.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was exciting for the first few years because I still had a lot of energy at that time in my life.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was willing to go above and beyond to make things really work for the students.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to create, I wanted to create a really awesome program for them.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, our college was really growing during that time.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a lot of students, at least by our standards.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: We had uh at our peak, we had 300 and some students, which I know for for a lot of people that still seems like a very small school.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But for us at the time, that was a lot of students.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But there came a time in my later 30s when the only way I can describe it is that I just hit a wall.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it was literally like somebody flipped a switch, and I wanted to immediately get out of worship and music ministry altogether.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like almost literally, literally overnight.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, I had been heavily involved in music and worship stuff for about 20 years, since I was a teenager in high school.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I had basically lived and breathed worship music and worship services for the past 20 years.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even in high school, I was leading leading worship at my church.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, let me just take a little side note here to say something.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just as kind of an aside, there is a reason that you very rarely see worship leaders older than 35 years old or at the maximum 40 in a growing church that uses modern music, you know, with guitars, drums, and so forth.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that that you don't often see worship leaders older than that is because it's really emotionally exhausting to produce those creative services and to be excellent week after week and year after year.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really, really difficult.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's a very good reason why you don't typically see people older than their mid-30s or maybe 40th tops doing those kinds of roles.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you attend a church where you have a pastor that is doing that and and they're over 35, make sure and and really encourage them because it is really, really exhausting.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I digress, that's kind of a side road.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let me get back to the main story here.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give some, I want to stop here for a second and give some massive credit to my college.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this is St.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College in Florida, Missouri.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I need to give them massive credit because when I was in my later 30s and I expressed a desire to move out of this realm to our, to my boss, which was our academic dean.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were very gracious.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And many times in colleges, whenever you don't want to do a specific job anymore, they just don't renew your contract or they kick you out or whatever.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But that was not the case with my school.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um in fact, they really worked with me.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he knew that this was not on my heart to be in this area anymore.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we started to slowly over a few years shift my role from being the music and worship guy to being um more of the communication arts person.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I told our academic dean that I really wanted to try some new courses related to storytelling, film, writing, and media and related kinds of areas.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So slowly over a few years, these courses were approved and integrated into my teaching rotation.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I absolutely loved doing these courses.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had a blast, and students responded to them really, really well.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And those were successful because I made them fun and I was personally excited about them.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, students had more fun as well.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So for those three or four years, I was gradually decreasing my involvement in our worship and music program while gradually increasing the courses in communications and related areas, the direction that I wanted to go.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then eventually the college hired a new worship professor, and I was able to fully step into a newly created role of professor of communication arts.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have to tell you, it was a really fun day when my academic dean asked what I wanted my new title to be.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was going to go with professor of communications, but I didn't because that title, professor of communications, usually refers to somebody who teaches journalism and related areas.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not really what I was doing.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I just honestly made up the term communication arts and we went with it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea if that's a thing, but at our school it was a thing.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to again give props to my academic dean at the time and uh our school for letting me go with that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me share a couple of side notes, and then I want to get back to the main story.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you can you can tell I have a lot to say about all these topics uh because I've been thinking about them for a very long time.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now that I am shifting away from my teaching role at our school, um, I feel more freedom to kind of talk about these things and kind of express uh my experiences and so forth.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so let me share a couple of side notes and then I'll get back to the main story.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is true that I was bored in my old role as a professor of worship and music, but there is another reason that I wanted to diversify the kinds of courses that I was teaching, and that is because I wanted to make myself more valuable to the organization.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And my thinking was that it was better to be a generalist who could teach a bunch of different types of courses than a specialist who was only focused on one type of course or one narrow subject area.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that proved over time to be a very wise decision, especially at a small college like ours where the budget was always tied and you never totally knew if your contract was going to be renewed from year to year.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought of this as a way to help ensure my value to the college.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the other thing I did, and you've probably noticed, was that I was actively creating and proposing these new courses.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: These new courses did not create themselves, they did not happen by accident.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So these were things that I actively thought, what would students be interested in?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what would I be interested in teaching?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And where could I really add some value to the school?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I was doing that, but I was also recruiting students for these courses.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is very rare, at least it was for my college.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was very rare for professors to go out and recruit students for their courses.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, when students sign up for college courses, they just sign up for whatever they want.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes they'll have an advisor's help, which, and then that's always really important.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But teachers rarely went and marketed their courses to students, so to speak.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I took it upon myself to talk to students about the courses and why they should take them.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this helped boost the enrollment for those courses, which of course only made me seem more valuable to the organization.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: At least that was my perception.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So back to the main story.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's around 2015, and I'm shifting into this new role of professor of communication arts at our school, which I definitely enjoyed.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: However, there was a lingering problem, and that was that my salary at the time was very close to what it was 10 to 11 years earlier.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, that's a big concern.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was very rare for us to get raises, and the only way to make extra money as a professor was to teach extra courses or take on a side job or some kind of side ministry.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, most of our professors did have some kind of side ministry or they they were doing something ministry related where they could make extra money.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I did this uh two to three times as well, where I would uh go work at a church for a while, very part-time, and just do it on the weekends.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did one thing for eight or nine months where I was a worship pastor at a church.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I did that twice.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I did, and there were a couple of times when I was the preaching pastor at a church for six or eight months, something like that.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the major problem with this arrangement was that it took you away from your family on Sundays, unless your family joined you, and my family never did because um it was usually at a distance and I had to drive to get there, and it just didn't really work out very well.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you had to travel quite a ways to preach or to lead worship at different churches where you might have a part-time ministry.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So as you can see, this was not really an ideal kind of arrangement, but it was an option to make extra money, and oftentimes I did those kinds of things.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But to be honest with you, I always hated doing it because it tied up my whole weekend.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you kind of have your work week where you're teaching courses and so forth, and you can't really relax on Saturday because you know you've got to go on Sunday to go.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you got to drive like an hour to get somewhere to preach or to lead worship or something.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I always kind of felt bad about feeling bad about that.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how else to say that, except I felt guilty that I didn't really, I felt guilty that I wasn't really excited about doing that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until, you know, years after I had I had been doing this for a while that I was kind of like, you know, this arrangement is not something I really like.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of had to become okay with the fact that I didn't really enjoy it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you who are not familiar with church or ministry culture, uh, this was kind of the attitude.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing this for the Lord, and we should be willing to basically put everything else in our lives second so we could do ministry and not be compensated very much in the process.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in fact, I remember one of our administrators at a school one time, he talked about having what he called a mission mindset, which was basically the idea of we don't really want to pay you very much because we're looking at you as a missionary.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, I I kind of just accepted it for what it was, and and that was that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is very much a lifestyle kind of thing, oftentimes in ministry circles, where it's looked at as ministry is your life.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a higher type of calling thing, it's not just a job.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and therefore your salary or your compensation should be kind of a secondary concern.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was fine, you know, like in my 20s and maybe even early 30s.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: But once, you know, my family started to grow and we started to have more.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Needs and more expenses and so forth, that that became more and more of a concern.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to argue the finer points of spiritual calling and all that stuff.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is not my point here.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And my point is also not to talk badly about my college at all.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: So just kind of hear me on that.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to to bash anybody or be negative at all in any sense.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you what kind of what the facts were.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm presenting presenting to you my experience of what actually happened.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I do want to say that I'm independent enough to know that I really disliked this whole way of thinking.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the more time went on, I really disliked it more and more.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh especially after being in this system for over 10 years at the time.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to working at a church for eight years before that, I was getting really tired of feeling like I was locked into somebody else's schedule and their priorities and whatever compensation they decided to give me.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point in my early 40s, which was just a few years ago, my whole attitude became I still want to serve God with my gifts, but why can't I do it on my own schedule?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I do it in my own location?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And why can't I get paid decently for it?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember around this time, I was in a local convenience store and I saw a sign where they were hiring assistant managers.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the starting salary was slightly above my contract amount, my annual contract amount at the college.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this light bulb moment where I realized that things were never going to get better for me financially if I stayed in that role and I only received and my only compensation was going to be coming from that role, and that I needed to really start making some serious changes in my life.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was grateful for where I'd come from.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was so grateful for the school and all the good times that I had had there and uh all the ways that I had grown and the opportunities that I'd had there.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I also knew that I needed to start changing directions if I wanted some new opportunities, and especially if I wanted to increase my income.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to be just totally honest with you, at that point our our student enrollment was beginning to decline every year.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as it has been for lots and lots of colleges and universities the past several years, uh, really, uh particularly the last couple of years with the pandemic.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So all those trends together really made me realize I've got to start thinking about my future and start putting that more into place.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So in 2016, I started doing freelance work.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I was really fortunate because at that point I had already published a couple of books, and the courses I was teaching at our school also aligned perfectly with communication skills.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: However, that honestly had very little to do with getting started in client work.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: The real thing that got me going was that I I had been hanging around in an entrepreneur community online, and I connected with a podcast producer who I knew was a writer.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a client who needed podcast show notes.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I started doing more and more client work the next few years, in addition to producing my own podcast.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It continued to grow.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple of years ago, I got into ghostwriting books, which is a higher level of compensation than typical freelance writing.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it grew to the point where my side business of ghostwriting and freelance writing was making more than my day job, at which point I knew I could make the transition.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I also want to add that since 2014 or so, I've also had a side hustle of creating my own content through books and podcasting.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the last few years, in essence, I've had two side hustles writing for clients, but also writing my own stuff and creating my own content.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, last November, I decided to start my daily writer community in addition to doing the podcast on a daily basis.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the daily writer community was kind of like a side side side hustle, if you will.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got like several levels of side hustle going here.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I was making income from all these things, and um I knew that there would be potential to do more and more of this in the future.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't necessarily recommend doing a bunch of these different kinds of side hustles.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, to be honest with you, I think that doing several different types of things on the side slowed my progress.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in fact, I know that it did.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: However, I don't necessarily regret that now because all of those things have come together in some interesting ways.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the fact that I write my own books, I produce my own podcast, I have a writing community, I think that helps my clients because I have a broader set of experiences creating my own stuff than a ghostwriter who's never written for themselves, if that makes sense.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I think that my client work and what I learned from them and their businesses, I know for sure that that helps my own writing and my own business.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I love all the cross-pollination that can happen when you're creating your own stuff, but also when you're doing client work.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I guess just to be really transparent with you, when it came right down to it a few years ago, I knew that there was really no future in what I was doing at the college, but there was a very bright future in what I was doing for clients, as well as my own content and the podcast and the community, focused around the daily writer.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really a very simple decision at that point.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't as if I hated my college job or I was like itching to get out of there ASAP or that kind of a thing, because I truly did really enjoy what I was doing and I truly loved the people that I work with, and I still do.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I love it so much I'm I'm gonna be doing a class for them this fall, uh, a writing course as an adjunct.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: But this, a lot of this was a financial decision, just to be really honest with you, because I knew I needed to do better for my family and that I need I needed to really get these things going in my life.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I when I kind of made that decision and had that light bulb moment, for me, the only issue was just just doing the work and just building it up and just getting clients and learning more and positioning myself as a ghostwriter and just building up all these things.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then over the last year or so, um, really kind of the final step for me was just putting money in the bank as a buffer for when I was going to make the leap and also ensuring that my client work was steady enough to realistically continue to support my family.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my basic story of overlapping a few times, all the way from my college years through being a worship pastor, then to being a worship professor, then a communications professor, then a freelance writer, and now a ghostwriter with a side hustle of the Daily Rider.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Daily Rider involves my own content, the podcast and the community, and more stuff as well.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also just now beginning to dip my toes into the waters of product development for clients and also for the Daily Rider.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am talking with some manufacturers and distributors about things like card decks, calendars, journals, planners, and other kinds of products.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this is all a very new world to me, but I feel kind of like a kid in a candy store because you're only limited by your imagination in terms of the kinds of products that you can produce for your brand.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my story of overlapping.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: That gives you some context for how this principle plays out in an actual setting.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And next week I'm really excited to share 10 tips for overlapping as you develop your own writing business.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks again for listening.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for hanging in there with me, and I hope this was helpful.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.comslash writing prompts.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.