Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Take Parental Leave When You're an Entrepreneur.... Or a Workaholic
Thu, 28 Nov 2024
Today, Nicole opens up about how she's been thinking about taking parental leave; from the logistical side of taking time off as a self-employed person to the emotional side of stepping away from your work, when you're someone who defines yourself by your work. In this episode, you'll hear a preview of a conversation Nicole had on the podcast she cohosts with Entrepreneur Magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer, where Jason shares how he and his wife figured out these logistical and emotional questions and how Nicole (and any Money Rehabbers interested in being parents!) can too.
Chapter 1: What are the challenges of taking parental leave as an entrepreneur?
I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. So this pregnancy thing is no joke, you guys. I am nine months pregnant, which has felt like 900 months. If you didn't know I was pregnant, by the way, surprise, I did mention it in my episode with Senator Gillibrand. But other than that, I've been keeping it pretty private.
I have processed a lot of big life moments publicly. And this totally insane but amazing experience of growing a small human is something that I wanted to just process with me and my husband. But But I do kind of need to talk about it now because my daughter could come truly any second now. Hosting a daily podcast is not so conducive to taking a maternity leave.
And beyond this type of work I do, I'm also someone who has always defined myself by work. So I'm really struggling with the idea of taking time off in general. So today you're going to hear an episode of the podcast Help Wanted that I co-host with the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, Jason Pfeiffer.
In this episode, I talked to Jason about how I've been trying to be open-minded about taking Matt leave. And Jason gives me some advice based on his own experience taking leave after he and his wife had their two kids. But before I share that episode, I want to tell you first what money rehab is going to look like for the next few weeks.
Today and tomorrow are my last episodes of Money Rehab for now, not forever, because even though my daughter has not been born yet, I can barely breathe. I can barely get through all of these sentences. I am so pregnant right now. Yes, these are the fun things that nobody tells you about pregnancy, by the way.
But even though tomorrow will be my last episode of Money Rehab for a beat, it's not the last episode of Money Rehab. Don't worry, because while I'm out, we're actually doing something that I think you're really going to love. The show, of course, must go on. I would not leave you money rehabbers hanging.
And so the show is going to be guest hosted by some of the smartest people I know, like Tracy DiNunzio, who built and sold the luxury resale company Tradesy. Peter Tuchman, the stockbroker you know and love, fellow MNN podcast host who reports from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Minda Hart, who's the bestselling author of The Memo and is an expert on workplace culture.
Moe Shwanunu, who's been a journalist with me for 500 years and hosts my favorite daily podcast, Moe News, which is actually joining the MNN family. So, yay. Claire Wasserman, who is an expert on pay negotiation. Real estate agent extraordinaire, John Grauman. Attorney, but a very cool one, Pamela Maas, aka Law Mother on Instagram. And our very own EP, Morgan Lavoie and more.
You'll hear more about that tomorrow in an episode that is all about budgeting for babies and some more sappiness. But in the meantime, here's my conversation with Jason.
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Chapter 2: How does Nicole feel about stepping away from work?
Like the most unvarnished answer?
Yes.
I feel so large. I feel like I cannot breathe. I normally can't breathe, as you know, and we swap tips about this, but I extra can't breathe. My pelvis is on fire. Right. There's a thing called lightning crouch, which you haven't experienced, but it's a real side effect of pregnancy. If you look up all the side effects of pregnancy, it looks like this crazy fucking disease.
Yeah. Well, I mean, in any other circumstance, you might as well say that it is a terrible disease. Like you have a thing growing inside of you. Usually a thing growing inside of you, not a thing you want. I think that sounds bad. You know, human life. This is how it happens. We're a bunch of animals. It's really crazy.
Like going through pregnancy just shows you like we're not elevated in any way. We're a bunch of animals doing animal things. You are beyond nine months pregnant right now, right? Like literally beyond it. Yeah, I am. We were not supposed to be recording today because you were supposed to already be on maternity leave.
I know, but I don't have a baby yet.
Right. But just to be really, really clear before we get into this, what we're going to talk about today is we're going to talk about stepping back and what you're feeling in this moment because you... You and I, we work like crazy. And you've built this company and now you're going to take a big old break from it. And that's scary.
Yeah, you don't want to. It's really scary.
Which is why you're here today because... So just for context, so everybody understands, the episodes with you and I that people hear every week are recorded every other week for us. We set aside a bunch of time and then we record a bunch of episodes in a row. And two weeks ago was supposed to be the last one. And then we were supposed to say, bye, Nicole, have a wonderful maternity.
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Chapter 3: What advice did Jason give about parental leave?
Yeah. So aside from the acid reflux that I forgot to mention, I'm feeling a lot of things. Like my first baby has always been work. And so it's always been my main focus and my main priority. And it's funny. We had a guest on Money Rehab a few weeks ago. I was like, oh, you're a mama already. Because on my Instagram bio, it says like mama of money news or something.
And so I've always felt that way. And especially with Eminem, it's my baby. And so I don't want to leave my baby for another baby. And I've never had an actual baby. So it's really weird. And working for yourself and not having a formal... you know, maternity leave program.
I'm curious what you and Jen did or how much paternity leave if you took any or what kind of entrepreneurial things you were doing when you were having the boys. But it's confusing. I went through a bunch of, you know, rigmarole to try and figure out if there was anything for
entrepreneurs, California is kind of robust, but still it was really hard and complicated and I never ended up figuring something out with it. So, you know, you're in a position where if you're an entrepreneur who has a, you know, bootstrap startup and not a formal business,
mat leave program you're like well i i eat what i kill and so if i'm not killing anything because i'm i'm trying to keep a human alive then like are we eating stuff and so it's it was a lot of you know that concern and consideration to try and figure out like do i take time off how much time do i take i have no idea what's about to happen so Let's just, you know, work for as long as I can.
But I also had a lot of anxiety around where I would be working because until a few months ago, we opened beautiful M&N studios, but the studio was in a room in my house. And so I... Right.
Just to be clear, the vast majority of the time, almost all the time that people have heard you, you have been on mic in a studio, which was actually just in a bedroom in your home that you would set up as a studio. And now that bedroom is taken over by a baby. So you had to go find another place to put that microphone.
I did. I did. And it was so convenient. And we had real shoots in there. We had Gary Vee come by. We had a bunch of celebrities and cool stuff going on. And so it was in my house, but it was also so convenient. And And, yeah, it was the only place where we could put a baby. And my husband, he is also an entrepreneur. We created like a shed for him, basically on the roof for his office.
And, you know, like the baby can't live in a shed outside. No, it cannot. The baby needed the room inside. And it is currently a nursery. And now we have beautiful actual offices with like real big rooms and setups and stuff. And it's awesome. And it's a huge upgrade and a huge testament to all of the work we've done.
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Chapter 4: How did Jason and his wife navigate parental leave?
And, you know, something about it just made me feel like I might need some separation because having baby stuff, work stuff all in the same place felt maybe like I would, you know, be... Having an identity crisis in no time and not really able to step away and not really able to get back to my first baby, my first love. And so, yeah, I think it ended up working out from from that perspective.
And I think having that separation is going to be really important. And I think that's setting me up for more success than I would have had otherwise.
You know, what's interesting is. this metaphor that you had has evolved because, so work was your first baby and that baby had its own little nursery in the form of a studio in your home. That's right. And then the baby had, the work baby got kicked out for an actual baby, which is forcing the work baby to grow up and to become like a work child or a work young adult. Yeah.
And, and for a while you were like, well, but maybe they can both be babies and they can both have their own little nurseries at home. But you're thinking, no, no, no. Like this is, this is, this is actually like to have a child is in some way to accelerate or to force the evolution of the other things in your life, which, which is exactly what it's worth.
What I have found with me, like I am, and we've talked about this, I am so deeply frustrated with, By the thoughts of how much more I might have accomplished or could do or whatever that I can't because I have kids. But at the same time, I have to remind myself that the time of my life in which I have had children, which has been nine years, I have a nine year old and a five year old.
That time has been the time of greatest accomplishment in my life. I have built the most during that time. So even as I focus on all the things that I couldn't do, I've also done the most. And why is that? I mean, part of that is just like, if you're doing life correctly, then there should always be new things and you're growing.
But another part of it is that I think that just having the kid forced me to put structures around my time in a way that I never had before and to be really intentional about how I'm using my time and to drop things that I enjoyed, but that just weren't as productive a use of my time. And as a result, my work has thrived. And that sounds like what you're setting up here.
Yeah. I mean, you talk very honestly. We did a whole episode about this. This was how I told you I was pregnant after you bashed children for an hour. Worth going back and listening to that episode. We'll link it. Yeah, that was classic. You had no idea.
I had no idea. That was amazing. I got a lot of emails. Did I tell you that? I got a lot of emails from that episode. People were really grateful about how honest I was about the challenges of parenthood. In fact, I was just talking with a friend who lives in Montana, and I was being open about how challenging I find parenting is.
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Chapter 5: What are the emotional struggles of working parents?
Like, you know, it'll be important for you as you'll find out, like parenting will be very rewarding, but also you're going to wipe a lot of asses and you're not going to enjoy any of that. It's OK not to enjoy any of that. Thanks, Jason.
I am duly prepared to have a lot of, you know, poop in my life. Thank you so much for the warning. You're welcome. So what did you and Jen do? Or did you have thoughts or anxiety about taking time off?
So... Well, if we rewind to the times in which we were having kids nine years ago and five and a half years ago, I, in both cases, was fully employed. Today, I have a job. A W-2 employee. if not 100% of my income, 90% of my income. That's not the case now. Now, I still have a W-2, but I also have a whole lot of entrepreneurial pursuits and make more outside than inside the company.
But back then, it was just that. So I had just a regular paternity leave of, I can't remember how much it was. It wasn't that much, a couple of weeks. And then my wife, Jen, is... She is self-employed, but as a freelancer. So she's really like eating what she kills. It's just like project to project to project to project. And it was interesting. Jen had more thoughts and feelings on this.
And her thoughts and feelings were that for her, work is this dual source of purpose and deep anxiety. Right. And she is always thinking about... I mean, she drives a lot of value... from her work, and she loves her work, and it's a place of passion for her. But also, she's always thinking about what's coming next, and will this project lead to another project? Am I at the end of my career?
Jen's always thinking this way. She'll write a book, and then it'll be like, ugh, is this the last book that I ever get to write? Is this the last article that I ever get to write? So there's a lot of anxiety. So she... saw maternity leave as a opportunity to take a break from that, to just say, I have another thing to focus on, a bigger, like kind of weightier, I don't know, whatever.
It's a more important thing. It's an actual human being. Yeah, it's an actual human being. So she was really hoping that that project of taking a break and just focusing on raising a child could eliminate some of the anxiety that she was feeling about work and just give her a break from it.
And I think that it did in the actual break, the actual few weeks that she gave herself for quote-unquote maternity leave, it certainly did not in the long run. She still has all that work anxiety even though we have our children. But she really loved that and I think wanted to find... a moment to recalibrate from it.
Me, on the other hand, honestly, what I did is that I used my paternity leave both times to just do other work projects. I remember I was working on a podcast five and a half years ago, a solo podcast project. And I spent basically my entire paternity leave at home when I was not helping out with the baby, just working on that thing because I don't really know how to stop.
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Chapter 6: How can you create boundaries between work and parenting?
So yeah, because babies are, are sleeping a lot. I mean, they're pooping and they're eating and they're, they're stuff, but like you still have time.
The beginning, the very beginning is the, it's the easiest time. I mean, you will like the, the, it's really real. The hardest part is sleeping because the baby will be waking you up constantly, but yeah, baby's just, baby's not doing much. It doesn't really require that much of your work. Like you're going to sit around and be bored.
Like I have a feeling that you will, it'll be very interesting to see what you do. Do you find other things to do? Like, like Jen, um, really committed to watching a bunch of trashy TV and just checking out and just enjoying being on a break. Whereas I didn't. I don't know how to do that. So I just worked on something else that wasn't my work.
I wonder what you were going to do when you would just have like, you have permission to have a break right now, Nicole. You have permission to have a break.
No, I've never watched trashy TV. I've never not once not ever seen a Real Housewives show or any of that stuff. I definitely don't think I would be starting now. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab. I feel like I'm going to be checking in or like I'm going to – yeah. I can't imagine being fully checked out. Again, I have no idea.
And, you know, like especially for Jen, for me, we have different physical recovery to go through. And so that's definitely something to be mindful of. I don't think I could – even if I – wanted to, like, record a podcast like you did, right? I would probably be resting. And I'm finding the recordings... you know, really challenging.
It's just really challenging to breathe.
Goodbye.
Right. Can I tell you that as we were talking, I was just flashing back to this moment. This to me was the, I don't know, maybe I've shared this with you before. I can't remember. So tell me if not. When I think back on this moment of transition from not having children to having children and just like an awareness moment for me, I don't know. I don't know how to categorize this thing.
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Chapter 7: What impact does having a baby have on work life?
Maybe we were playing a game or something. I don't know what we were doing. And it occurred to me, and so what I said to her was, I said, everyone always says, after having children for a long time, you sort of can't remember life without them. Just because your life is just so different. It's like, what did I do with all my time? You sort of forget. And I said, we are living right now
at the very end of before times. The rest of our life will be divided by this moment. Life is divided by all sorts of moments, but a big one is this one. Like BK, before kids. Yeah, it literally is BK or Burger King. And so I was just like, we are at the end of the before times. And it's a strange... I didn't know what to do with that thought, but I liked being aware of it.
You're in these seasons of life, and sometimes you only realize that you moved from one season to the next in retrospect. I don't know if people in the Middle Ages were like, we're in the Middle Ages. It's only later that you were like, those are the Middle Ages. But this is a moment where you're like, this is the... Yeah, or like the good old days.
Remember the good old days?
Like, we're in the good old days. Yeah. It's like, this is the end of before times. Yeah. And so the more immediate questions are like, will I be able to step away? Will I want to step away? I don't think I want to. Those are actually just the kind of hypothetical beginning questions of what it will actually mean to reorient your time and priorities. And everyone does this differently.
My guess for you is... You tell me if I'm right or wrong, but my guess is that you'll probably do it a lot like I did it and like Jen did it, which is to say the kids are an important part of our lives, but we didn't drop everything to have the kids replace it. And so there's this...
always tension about like where we're being pulled and so a thing that you will need to do in a way that you kind of never did before was to just start to draw lines and one of them was that very smart thing that you anticipated here already which is like if if you were in a house where the baby was and where the work baby was, then you're going to get pulled from both of them.
And so there needs to be separate spaces almost so that you can give each the attention that they deserve. Actually, it was interesting because when you talked about that You talked about it really from the perspective of you're working, but then the baby needs something, so you sort of have to get drawn to the baby. But it goes the other way too, right?
Which is that you could be with the baby, but then feel drawn to work, and so you're not fully present with the kid. But if you create an actual separation, like just the studio is somewhere else, then that's actually an interesting forcing function to be a little more present. And I'm not very good at being present.
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Chapter 8: What preparations did Nicole make for her parental leave?
Yeah, I think it's like the mental health boundary became really clear as we were trying to figure out what the space was, how important that would be. And also, you know, just by nature of our business, we were having guests and stuff come. Like, we didn't have a baby. You know, come on in. Yeah.
I think having a baby and a baby nurse and stuff and guests, it felt like my home that I had before I met my baby daddy was this bachelorette palace. And then he came and then baby came. And so it changed my... interpretation of what that space was and what it should be or, you know, how practical it would be to have it be both.
And I realized really quickly that I don't think that's going to be beneficial for either of the roles that I'm trying to do well. To your point, yeah, like when you're doing one thing and you're thinking about another thing, you're not fully present or doing that thing. You might as well be doing the other thing. And so I'm sure I'm going to feel pulled in that way and and like physically
you know, I don't know, like, I'm gonna have to feed a baby. Like, we ended up finding an office that was in walking distance to the house. So that's nice, but still important separation, I think. And also like this identity idea. Because I was like, for a while losing, I felt like my office, I ended up, you know, having my dog go to a friend because I was finding it really hard to
run after her she's like a little dog and I was exhausted and so I felt like this baby was like taking this you know space that was really important to my identity and like my my studio my dog was gone and like here I am just like with leaky boobs and a baby down to the bone yeah And so I felt like I had to take control of that and to, and I think we did it in a really impactful way.
Like we took what the studio was and we souped it up. Like it's a real functioning thing. It's really cool. And I'm really proud of it. And it was a forcing function. And I think it was like a net positive for the company actually.
Because you, you, you, you, you, I don't know. I was going to make like some sort of weird umbilical cord cut reference here, but like, you know, because you let it, you let it separate. It's so close. I know it was almost there and I don't, I don't know how to cut the cord. I'm just going to keep going with it.
So because you separated it, because you let this work baby grow up and move into its own place. Now it can grow in ways that it never could have when you were treating it like a baby, I guess is totally right. Like totally.
Yeah. We could rent it out. We could do a lot of things.
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