Melissa Nicholson

MELISSA NICHOLSON: Our life is our personal lives and our careers. It’s all one. It’s work-life compatibility, and we need a lot of support and love to get through it all. And we need to empower ourselves. So remember, you have to believe you can job share.

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

MELISSA: Heck yeah, you’re back. Welcome to our minisode. These are shorter episodes where we focus on mindset, and it’s my sincere hope that you will find them equally as valuable as my interviews with experts and job shares, the work-life strategies I’ll share, and job sharing lessons.

Anytime anybody is making a big change in their lives, whether it’s a change in their personal lives or their work lives, and in this case, job sharing, it’s both. Whether they’re trying to get a flexible work practice approved, they want to hit a big career goal that may be returning from a career break, making a career change, moving into a new position altogether. Or it may be getting a promotion and moving on up that corporate ladder. It may also be founding your own startup, starting your own small business. Whatever it is, you definitely have got to get your mind in the right place.

So many of us are on that 24/7 treadmill. We’re working remotely, but we’re working around the clock now. It’s no longer the 40-hour workweek, the 9-to-5. It’s fifty (or) sixty hours, after the kids go to bed, before they wake up, at nap time…

So that’s the reason that these mindset episodes are so very important. Because when you are making a life transformational change, it takes a lot of courage. I’m going to do something for you that I wish someone had done for me, and I can guarantee that nearly every job share, past or present, feels the same way—I’m going to help you do it much, much sooner.

And it all starts with you. There’s one thing that you need to decide about job sharing. You can do it. You can job share. You have to believe with all your heart. You deserve to work in a way that values your expertise and the whole person you bring to work. But trust me, take it from someone who’s gone before you. You’ve got to believe that you can work this way, that you can job share in order to manifest it.

Here’s the secret about my first job share, and it’s true of nearly all job shares. It took us longer to take the leap of faith and start job sharing than we’d like to admit. We let our fears about asking to job share get in the way of actually jumping in and doing it. I cannot tell you the number of job shares who told me they wish they had job shared much, much sooner. They wish they hadn’t waited for the right timing or the right boss, the right opportunity, the right moment, or the right job.

They wish they’d taken a leap of faith.

I saw my first job sharing my twenties. I first interviewed for a job share before I was going to have kids to “slash jobs.” I wanted to keep working at the production company I’d co-founded, just part-time, and job share in radio. She told me they would never approve a job share for a new employee who wasn’t a new mother. Another year or more went by and my dear friend Kelli, whom I dreamed up job sharing with for years, told me there was a great list available at the company she’d just left to stay home with her baby for. I nailed the interview, and I landed the job. There was a job share there and I thought if I just busted my butt and proved myself, I could earn a job share. By the way, you shouldn’t have to earn a job share. It’s a clear win-win for every employer.

I waited a lot longer outlasting a lot of middle-aged white male managers with stay-at-home wives, making it evident they didn’t want any more job shares. As Sallie Krawcheck says, “Middle management is where flexible work goes to die.” So I waited longer. I was on maternity leave. I returned to a new company and boss who had personal experience managing job shares. But here’s the thing: I didn’t have to wait, and wait, and wait. And neither do you. You can create your job share within months of deciding that you want to work this way, but you have to believe you can do it now.

I believe the reason that it takes people far too long to implement their job shares is because they may have just heard of job sharing, they don’t know that much about it, and they haven’t seen examples in practice. It seems complicated. And, it takes people time to wrap their heads around job sharing. After all, there’s not just you—you’re literally sharing your profession, your income, and even your personal life with another person. But that’s what makes job sharing so great, so satisfying. You’re not in it alone. You’ve got a built-in support system. Your partner is in it with you. They’re your right arm, your rock. They’ve got your back.

It seems complicated because it’s a new concept, but it’s really not. Finding a job share partner is much easier than people think it is. and getting approval from your employer comes easy when they understand the massive benefits to their business that your job share will bring.

I wish I wouldn’t have waited so long to share, so I’m going to say it again: You have to believe in your heart that you can job share, and the reason is—you don’t want to be the person standing in your own way. Sometimes you gotta get a little woo-woo to make things happen in your life. I believe I can job share. As silly as this may seem, I want you to say it out loud. I’ll do it with you. Okay, let’s say it, “I believe I can job share.” Did you do it? Just that one thing might be the spark you need to manifest your job share.

You have probably heard this before, but it’s so true. Thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to actions, and actions lead to results. You might be thinking, “Melissa, who am I to job share?” I have a simple mantra that I recently heard from Marie Forleo that I believe will help you combat “imposter syndrome.” She simply says, “I don’t do imposter syndrome.”

Powerful right?

When I heard this, I started applying it in my life right away. If you make things very simple, “I don’t do imposter syndrome” and you realize that that is a physiological and psychological response to fear, and you learn how to move through fear and realize that fear is your friend, there to keep going and moving in the right direction. It’s going to be very easy for you to say, “I don’t do imposter syndrome.” You have to believe you can job share and don’t let imposter syndrome or anything else stand in your way.

So I hope you enjoyed the minisode. It takes a lot of people a really long time to make any big change, especially when they’re in the middle of a life transition.

Our life is our personal lives and our careers. It’s all one. It’s work-life compatibility, and we need a lot of support and love to get through it all. And we need to empower ourselves. So remember, you have to believe you can job share. And if you find that imposter syndrome is creeping on in, I want you to say to yourself, “I don’t do imposter syndrome.”

A couple of things. We have a pretty amazing Facebook community full of go-getters, just like you, who want to do this whole thing differently, work and life. So join us at Job Share, Live Life + Slay Work community. I cannot wait to have you be a part of it. I love how Glennon Doyle says, “If you love this podcast episode, can you subscribe and then rate and review? If not, don’t worry about it.”

So if you like what you’re hearing and you want to just share the good stuff, because, shouldn’t we just all share the good stuff and help one another as we go? Then share it with a friend, write, and review it. Subscribe. 

I hope you really enjoyed the mindset motivation in our minisode series, because making big moves in our professional and personal lives is really hard. Let’s do it together. Just like job sharing, you don’t have to do it alone. I’ve got your back. I’m sending you a bunch of love this week, friend. Bye for now.