Melissa Nicholson

MELISSA NICHOLSON: One thing I never did that I’d heard about, and why did I wait 18 years to do this? I don’t know. You’ve heard about this, right? Like, you’ve heard about women doing this, where they take a vacation completely by themselves. A trip all by yourself: Mom Spring break!

Introduction

INTRO: Welcome to Job Share Revolution. The show about job sharing—a partnership between two people to bring two minds and skill sets to one full-time position. I’m Melissa Nicholson, former job sharer turned founder of the first U.S. job share company. But it wasn’t long ago that I felt like an utter failure at work and as a new parent. Job sharing was my game-changer. I reclaimed four days a week to fully engage in my life while my capable partner handled everything. Together, we achieved more than I ever could solo. Fast forward to many lessons learned to bring you the training and support I wish I’d had to change lives and the modern-day workplace. Let’s live life and slay work.

Melissa Intro:

 Well, hello. Beautiful human. It’s Mel, and I am beyond excited that you have joined me today. Full disclosure, this episode is going to be a little bit different. It wasn’t one that I planned for, but it’s one that I just felt I had to do. I had one of the biggest moments. More than a moment, I would say it was an experience during our family’s spring break week, and I thought, I’ve just got to talk about this.

If you know anything about me, you know that my mission in life is to help people find true work-life balance while they are able to level up in their careers leveraging two minds, two skill sets in one job, having that supportive, incredible partner that’s in it with you that helps you just be better. Just be better. And of course, you’re better in your personal life.

You are able to completely unplug and engage with your family and yourself. There’s this other thing, a secret, hidden benefit of job sharing. Like, to me, it is the biggest (one). Job sharing at work leads to job sharing at home, meaning it is almost as if you are taking five days and squeezing them down into three. You work in this hyper-efficient, focused workweek, right? And your partner—your life partner, your parenting partner—they step in and they become the lead parent on those days. It leads to this very equal division of labor at home, for co-parenting and household chores. So now that I’ve gone on and on about job sharing, which, you know, I could do all day long, let’s get to the heart of the matter.

The reason that I was so motivated to create my job, sharing the job share in the first place, was because I wanted to be that engaged, present mother, and I did engage with myself. I did leave space in my days for myself. So I had my kids in preschool or daycare for four days a week, even though I worked three days a week so that I could have that one extra day just for me. I did. I took acting classes, I took dance classes. That’s all great…

One thing I never did that I had heard about…And why did I wait eighteen years to do this? I don’t know. I didn’t have real time with myself away from my family. You’ve heard about this, right? Like you’ve heard about women doing this where they take a vacation by themselves, completely by themselves, to reengage with themselves. To, like, get in touch with themselves. To just enjoy time on a vacation with themselves. And I think we give so much to our families that it just seems greedy. Why would you take, you know, the time away and not be spending it with your kids?

So my motivation for job sharing was that I wanted to spend as much time as possible with those tiny humans. I didn’t have my kids super early. I was in my 30s and I just knew time was precious. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with them, and I’ve been that way the entire time. Here. They are teenagers. They’re both in high school now, and I still am that mom who wants to be with them. I want to watch them interact with the world, and I want to see them grow at every single level. And time away from them, honestly, sometimes I’m like, I’d rather be with them. And I don’t think that I would have done what I did this past spring break had it not just happened completely organically. You’ve probably heard about moms who have done this. They have taken a vacation away from their families, not a girl trip. I’ve done a couple of girl trips with my college girlfriends, but a trip by yourself? Enter Mom Spring Break.

This would not have happened had we had firm plans to take a family vacation or anything like that. But my daughter is in her senior year of high school, and whew, the stress is real. It is like event upon event upon event upon event. And then there are so many things to stay on top of with the entire college application process. And we’ve kind of known that, but it’s a lot. And so we didn’t have firm plans for our spring break. But then my son came to me, Sam, and he just said, I really want to spend some time with Marmie (his grandmother) this spring break. So I said, okay, I’ll take you. I’ll take you to Dallas.

So I rang up my high school best friend, Forrest. He was going to be in San Francisco with his boyfriend, and he said, “Yeah, stay at my house.” It’d be perfect. And so I thought, maybe I’ll just have my own little vacation in Dallas, not just hanging out at Forrest’s house, which is pretty great, but I thought, “I’m just going to do Dallas like a tourist.” Sam and I were driving and I said, “What are you going to do with Marmie whenever you’re in Dallas?” Like, what are your plans? And he goes, “Oh, Marmie is going to teach me to sew.” So he’s really gotten into thrifting and fashion, and he even cuts his own shirts. He’s got a shirt cutter. I thought, “This is great. He’s going to learn how to sew, I’m going to stay at Forrest’s house.”

I took him over there to get him set up in her senior living apartment, and that’s where he wanted to stay and wanted to stay with her. So I was like, great. On the first morning, I woke up in a casual way. It was awesome. I made myself some coffee. I started listening to Oprah’s new podcast, How to Live Your Best Life. Like different aspects of living your best lives, and man, I just, I loved it. I binged all of those, and so I sat out by the pool. I just had a very lazy morning. And then I thought, okay, I’m going to go to the Dallas Museum of Art. They had an exhibit called When You See Me. It was underserved artists, and it was incredible. I am a real art lover, I love art, it is so personal to me. I loved every moment. The second place I went was the Haegue Yang exhibit at the Nasher Sculpture Center. That was breathtaking. And so I  just took in all of these sculptures in. It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was beating down, there was a cool breeze, and these sculptures were just majestic. This young guy who was working at the Sculpture museum ran down and found me, and brought me this notecard. And he’s like, “Since you’re staying here, here are the places that you need to go. Here’s an incredible Italian restaurant. Here is this awesome gelato place.” And I just thought it was the sweetest thing ever. I was like, “This is great!”

I went back home and thought, “I’m going to go out to this Italian restaurant by myself.” Now, I can’t tell you the last time that I ate out at a fancy restaurant by myself. I walked in, I sat up at the bar, and it was busy. It was hopping. When I got in there, it was a Friday night. I thought, I can do this. I can sit in a restaurant by myself and thoroughly enjoy myself. It was so fun.

Day two, I decided after having a lazy morning. Then, I was going to go to the Dallas Arboretum, which is this gorgeous, gorgeous garden. And then I decided, I’m going to go to the gelato place. And I went to Bottolino’s and got some gelato. And it had really warmed up, so I decided to go swimming. And it was just amazing. You’re probably thinking, “What took you so long?” Here I am, a few years away from being a complete empty nester, and I was thinking the same thing. “What took me so long?”

I’ve heard about these women. I’ve read about these women who take these trips away from their families so they can come back and be a better version of themselves. I just thought, I’ve got to do an episode on this because I think it is compulsory. I don’t even think it’s a nice-to-have. I think I waited too long. I think, like a lot of moms, I have made personal sacrifices. Like, you know, the mom is the last one to eat. She feeds the family, she makes the lunches, and then she takes a little leftover grape for herself. We are givers, givers, givers. And we give in a way that we often don’t take the space for ourselves because we think it’s greedy.

And I think that’s true. I think I thought it was greedy to take time away from my family. And as someone who just is such a messy mom, I think it was that that I thought, I don’t really… when I spend time away from them on a vacation somewhere, I want to be on vacation with them. But now that I have done it, I am just so eager to know.

Have you ever, as a parent, taken a solo trip just for yourself? Even if it’s just a couple of days like I did, I just dipped my toe in. Why didn’t I do it sooner? I wish I had. That’s why I had to hop on here and just say, if your kids are two, five, seven, 11, your kids are always going to need you.

You’re always going to feel that draw that you want to, not let them down. But like I’m telling you, this was maybe one of the happiest mini moments of my life. Spending these two days fully by myself. And it was like the perfect spring break. I had my time, my daughter had some me time with her friends. My son had some meaningful time with his grandmother, the kind that everybody wanted.

Sometimes it’s hard to stop pushing so hard to make these family moments happen. We don’t just relax into the moment and see what everybody really wants to do individually. If you happen to be a mother and you are listening to this podcast right now and you just need a little permission to take a break and go spend some cute with you, I hope this episode will give you the permission you need.

My goal in life is to help you have the most joyful life and the most joyful career possible, and to do that, you really need to tune in to yourself. So I hope it’s inspired you a little today. If there’s another mom you know who could really use a break and some quality time with themselves, send them this episode today. Maybe it will inspire them to do what I wish I had done so much sooner.

Okay, I’m sending you a lot of love this week. See you next week. Same time, same place.