Onnie Michalsky (00:00.11)
We bought a fixer upper, it didn't have power, it didn't have water. Basically the walls had to come down and chimneys had to be pulled out and foundations had to be repaired. And guess how much money we had? None. We had no money. Why would we take on challenges like that? Here we are at what time in the morning and the neighbors knock on the door. I'm cutting lumber, I'm trying to build a wall. It's like 2 a .m. And the neighbor comes over, knocks on the door and says, are you going to be done anytime soon? I'm just trying to get some sleep.
And literally, Onnie's laying on a bundle of two by fours I got laying in the house that I'm working off of. And she goes, thank you so much. Thank you. Like we've got to get back. How many piles of two by fours did I change Ariella's diaper on during that year? Welcome to Moms Without Capes, the podcast where you'll get practical strategies for reclaiming your sense of identity within motherhood. I'm Onnie Michalsky
And my goal is to help you prioritize your needs and carve out space for yourself so that you can rediscover who you really are beyond your role as a mom. In this episode, we're joined by my partner of 25 years. Jason and I are going to take you behind the scenes of our marriage and spill some secrets about how we've managed to stay together for so long. You'll get a guy's perspective on self -care, the Fair Play method, and what it's been like to live life with six kiddos.
This is Moms Without Capes. Close to a year ago, I read the book, Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, and we watched the documentary. And when I read it, I was like, this is an amazing system because at that time I was struggling really bad. I felt like everything was falling on me. I had to do all of those things at the same time because I had too many things to do and not enough hands to do it all.
Multitasking, it's not healthy. We have this mental load where we're thinking of all the things that we need to get done. Fair Play is the system that allows us to take ownership of certain tasks so that we can take it off of our mental load. When you say multitasking, now you're talking about doing multiple tasks at the same time, but essentially those tasks are all going to get completed. So are you saying to take these tasks, break them down, top to bottom, list them priorities and go one through five?
Onnie Michalsky (02:27.47)
Right? So you knock out one, then two, three, four, five, whatever, and do it in that order. Instead of trying to do three or four things at the same time, getting them completed, maybe a little quicker, maybe a little slower. I don't know. I don't know the study. I don't know the psychology. Yeah. And there are studies that there's studies that show that like that you're not going to complete a task as well as if you just focused on that task, got it done, and then moved on.
It takes up to 20 minutes to actually transition your mind from one task to another. So checking email, cooking dinner, like, okay, I'm in it. And then I go and it takes 10, 15 minutes to transition to think of what I'm going to write in this email by then dinner's burned. Right. And so you're putting out these fires or doing all these things and not you, I am, cause I know you are seeing all of these tasks and I admire that. I want to be able to do that. But in order to do that, I need to know that some of these other tasks.
can be eliminated from my to -do list or that they are being handled. When you singularly do a task and someone says, Hey, I need help with this. You got to tell them, no, no, I can't. I can't. And I've gotten better at that. I have gotten better at that. I know, but because it doesn't benefit you, right? Like, especially if you're the other person that's like, I need you to do this. It's called boundaries, dude. It's called recognizing my limits and my needs.
I'm wondering about self care and last night wanting to go to tennis with JJ. Yeah. Right. That is your self care. You're like, I want to go exercise. I want to go play and everything. Tell me when you hear those words, self care, do you think of going to play tennis? What, what kind of feeling do you have about that word? No, no, that's not, it's one of those things. Self care. I can only imagine. I'm a blue collar background. I call up one of my buddies and say, I'm going to go have some self care. Like, no.
That's not happening. Now, if I'm...
Onnie Michalsky (04:28.75)
I called him up and says, yeah, I was trying to get out of the house to go hang out with my son. And I just couldn't do it because I was cooking dinner. Like, Oh, I'd be made fun of. You kidding me? I put some of my work onto you because I was making dinner at the time. And my son came up and says, Hey, let's go. And I knew I was going to do it, but I had to get to a certain point before I could just up and leave and say, honey, you need to pull the food out of the stove before, you know, I'll set the timer. Now I didn't, I didn't want to leave you with more than that.
because I take pride in my foods. I really do like to cook and put out a good meal for the kids, even though it's never healthy. It just tastes good and I'm okay with that. But if it tastes bad and it's burned, yeah, that's no way. I wouldn't consider that self care. It's not that I ever said, Hey, I'm going to do self care. I'm going to go to a Zumba class or I'm going to do self care. I'm going to run a half marathon. I just never said that. Right. But yeah, at the same time you playing tennis like that is physical self care. That's emotional.
taking care of your mental health, that's social, because you're investing in those relationships. That is self -care. And for a long time, I felt really guilty about doing anything that was outside of my role as a mom or wife. And trying to do Zumba, I couldn't figure out how to do it. I couldn't fathom in my mind how to go and do a fun class.
when there was so much stuff to do at home. We're starting to define these things as self -care and we're starting to define different things that help you throughout life or help anybody throughout life. And we're starting to put a name behind it. I don't know if anybody, say our parents' generation or something like that, they would be like self -care like that. It's just mental health self -care. We're starting to see more people get out and take care of themselves. We're going backwards somehow. I don't know how this works.
world. It seems like we're going backwards. We're trying to slow down. We're trying to slow down because we're realizing that this hustle culture isn't working. And you even brought up a really good point about if you were to say to your friends, I've got to do these things like cook dinner or go play tennis with your son and stuff, like how they would laugh at you because there's cultural expectations that we're fighting against. And the more you step against that and take ownership, like, Hey, I take
Onnie Michalsky (06:55.6)
pride in cooking dinner, or I want to go out and play tennis with my son or whatever it is. I think that is you taking action to say, I'm not going to stand for it anymore. These cultural expectations are no longer serving me. No. And I think that's great because we need men like you. We need men who are going to say, I'm not, I'm not for this. I think, I think overall we're just trying to be good parents, right? We're just trying to.
make sure our kids have everything that they need to succeed. And to be honest, I love nothing more than watching my kids play a sport in a competitive fashion. I don't care if I'm cooking dinner or whatever's going on. I'll drop it. If I have a child come up to me and says, Hey dad, I want to do this. I'm doing it for myself. I struggle with that because I will be there with our kids thinking of where I need to, where I think I should be, or I'd be out there.
tennis courts like, oh I forgot to tell Jason to turn off the oven. I won't be able to be fully present because I would be thinking of all of the things that I left hanging. There is a huge difference there but we've seen it through our relationship where I can singularly just take a task.
Give me something to do and I can do it. Now, while I'm doing that task, even making dinner last night, don't ask me to do anything else because I have a task. I have to complete it. Once that's complete, then I can move on. Now, you, I've seen you do it. You can do dinner, do the kids' homework at the same time, answer phone calls.
do something on the internet. You're doing 30 things and getting half of it done where I just get one job done completely. And it's amazing to me that you do that. You're like a lizard. You got eyes going both ways. You see everything. I only see one thing when I'm going and that's just, just the way I'm built. I'm comfortable in that. I like that. I do it at work all the time and it's very stressful where I've got to make all these people happy at the same time. It's hard to do and I hate it. So when I come home, if I
Onnie Michalsky (09:04.592)
just stick to one task. Like I know my tasks today and there's multiple tasks to do but I've got some that are higher on the list than the other. I'm gonna do that one higher on the list and work my way through it. I'm not gonna do two all at the same time. So let's talk a little bit more about fair play. So now first I bought the cards, it's hundred cards and I laid them out on the table and we both felt super overwhelmed and I know you
immediately felt offensive. I thought you literally were picking on me. You pulled out these dang cards and says these are what we're going to do and this is this and that and I I says fine just give me the stack of cards. I didn't want to do it. I don't like having a system put behind what I'm doing right. I want it to be my own idea and do what I like to do. But anyways you set these cards out and I just grabbed all of them. I'm doing all of these. You You were so annoying. You're good. I'll do this. I'll do this.
this and you just like had all these cards and you were like I think you took 70 of the hundred cards some things like changing the kids diaper which we don't even have babies in diapers you were willing to do it yes I was so we had to start back over like the cards yeah that was the competition piece and that wasn't the point
It wasn't a competition. It was a working together thing. Yeah, I know. But see, you you study and you read and you come up with these new programs and then you throw them on me like, I'm not on board. I'm just not educated you I had you watch the documentary. You tried to make me watch it. I tried very little bit and then you brought up the point of the husband walked past out of his car and there was beer bottles laying in the yard and he just walked past him and went into his house and as soon as I heard that,
I was like, this ain't me. All right. I'm not the guy that's going to just avoid work to avoid it. Like if I see where I typically try to do it, not to pick on you, but just this morning I picked off your socks off the dining room floor. So it may not be the beer bottle on the lawn. And I know your immediate response was you don't think I help. I help. And that wasn't the idea at all. And
Onnie Michalsky (11:17.198)
you know I have a problem with the word help because that assumes it's my responsibility. And I don't mean to change it, but let's go back to where my socks, cause I'm sitting back in the dining room looking for my socks. So now I'm upset that my socks aren't up here. I threw them out. I threw them out. Why'd you move my socks? I wish I had my socks right now. So anyway, back to the cards. So we talked about them.
I think you talked just as much as I did, but I was reading from the book about what each card meant. And we talked about what it meant for our family. We eliminated probably a third of the cards because we're not in that season. There were a lot of things that didn't pertain to us or weren't relevant. So then we were left with those cards. And we decided just to start with one or two cards. That was months ago. And we still...
do just those cards. More than once you've tried to change it because you're a horrible. This is the system we're supposed to talk about. And you'd love to take whatever system I have down and add or take away from it. Like let's just change. No, I don't want to change. If I'm in charge of dishes, I'll be in charge of dishes the rest of my life. That's it. I don't want another task. I got this one. And you'll be like, no, let's switch it up. Why don't you do this, this and this and I'll do the dishes. I'm like, no, I'm not changing.
So yeah, the dishes, the trash in the mail. Those were the three that you took ownership of. I'm so good. And I don't even know if you know this, but the very first Wednesday when trash was supposed to go out, I had to hold back because I knew that you didn't put it out. And I was like, if I put this out, it's defeating this whole thing. And so I think you had to take it to the dump that Friday or something, but I don't think you missed many Wednesdays since the only Wednesday you did is if when there's a holiday on Monday or whatever.
But like you take care of it and I don't have to constantly keeping track of like, oh, I got to get the trash out. I got to make the trash can back from the curb. I got to make sure all the trash is out of the house. Those things I can completely eliminate because I know that you took ownership of it and I can count on you and rely on you. If your curiosity is peaked and you're wondering if the Fair Play method is something that could help you and your partner feel like you're on the same team again, then you'll want to stay tuned. At the end of today's episode,
Onnie Michalsky (13:35.534)
I'll be sharing with you how you can take the Fast Track to implement the Fair Play method and redistribute the household and childcare labor in your home.
What's one word that you would use to describe the last 25 years of our marriage? One word to describe our marriage. I'd like to be funny and say long, but that isn't the case. I can remember actually a time that you've asked me this before and I said, I don't even remember it. It's just so fast and I just don't remember the last 25 years to be honest. And so I felt good about that answer and you said to me, oh my gosh,
It's been so long and I'm like, please. So yeah, the 25 years for me has not been as painful as it has been for you. Well, when I was thinking about this question, I was like, well, he's probably going to turn it on me and ask what's the one word. And I would say adventurous. I feel like our whole entire marriage has been just one adventure after another.
whether it's building houses or moving across the country, doing different things, doing different things together. I feel like it was just full of adventures. So that was my word, adventure. Let's talk about how we met.
More than 25 years ago, 26 years ago or whatever. It's probably about this time. So, um, it all started out with an arranged marriage. Her parents felt bad for her. I was lost, right? You gave me directions. Yeah, actually it was in the military and I was on post. I was sitting there and hanging out with my friends, just enjoying our nice afternoon. We had a barbecue going and the beer was flowing and we were just hanging out.
Onnie Michalsky (15:24.816)
And this poor girl come wandering through the base and my friends said to me they said Hey ski, you know at the time my name was ski. So They said hey ski. There's a girl for you over there and I laughed, you know, whatever and then she looked lost. She was out of her own. I was lost Figuratively and literally so I walked over to her and you've got to understand the situation She was in was it was pretty bad. I walked over and I go
What are you doing? This is an all male barracks, all male everything. I go, it's not safe for you to be here by yourself just wandering around. And she goes, well, I'm looking for my boyfriend's room. And I go, I'll help you out. Yeah, yeah, that's how naive I am. I'll help you out. I didn't think too much of it. So I walked up, she knocked on the door of a different building that we had, the barracks building and nobody answered. So we're walking back and I looked at her and I says, Hey,
Yeah, you wanna hang out with us? I mean, we're just gonna have some chicken, drink beer, whatever. And you agreed. And one of the things about that night that I remember vividly, I was sitting there and I couldn't remember Onnie. It was just a tough name to remember. And so I was sitting there and I'm like, oh geez, and I'm going through my head now. I wanna communicate with Onnie but I don't know her name.
So I go, oh, let me get your number. So she wrote down her name and her number and I put it over in my dresser. And so then as the night went on, I had to look back at that occasionally and be like, Onnie okay. So we played cards and enjoyed our first night together. I remember it was like three or four in the room. We were just talking and just getting to know one another. It's really funny because I just wouldn't think that I would find someone that could relate so closely to my family values. And.
the way I was raised and just find this random person that was basically raised a lot of the same way. We both went to Catholic schools. There was so much in common. Should I bring up what you kept saying to me? I remember you continually saying, you remind me so much of my sister. I should have known right then. You should have did. That's weird. You should That's weird. Yeah, if that ever happens again. Right, yeah, if it ever happens again, I'll know. Lesson learned. Well, and I relate it.
Onnie Michalsky (17:46.992)
I did you to my sister for one reason. Because you were lost wandering through an area that I would never allow my sister to do, but she does it all the time. And I thought, this is very odd for a female to be wandering through here. And I had no idea. I've never been on a military base. Like I didn't really have any knowledge of the military or anything like that. It was meant to be. It was meant to be. So that was back in 1999. And since then, according to you, it's been a very long marriage.
to me it's been a very adventurous one. No, no, I didn't say long. I said it wasn't bad. You're the one that said it. I'm the one that said long. Yeah. Well that is a long time, especially nowadays with divorce and how many relationships fall apart. The fact that we're together is 25 years. But look at your parents, look at your grandparents. Well, if you look to the future and see the changes, I would say they're probably, you know, we're changing for the worse. If you look back at our parents, both our parents actually had a really great relationship, been together forever. And today's
world it's amazing but in all reality we're just doing what our parents did. Right that was just what we knew and we just continued it. What do you think makes our relationship unique? Makes us unique? Like aside from being able to stay together I feel like both of us are stubborn enough to continue to persevere because giving up is the only other option and neither one of us are ones to give up. I think that's helped us but what do you think what are your thoughts on that?
I hate to talk about myself unique, but let's talk about why this relationship's unique or you're unique. Well, we're both fighters and giving up's not an option. So you just continually fight. There's going to be issues and problems and we just keep going. It's amazing that we both just kind of fight, right? All the time. I mean, and not like - Did you say we fight? Not like fight, but fight to keep the relationship.
Fight the battle. Not necessarily fight. We don't fight. We really, I don't think we fight all that much. Every time if we are to have a disagreement, like I'll go battle, like the world, the battle to the bottom. And that's where I go. I am go for the throat kind of person. And you've always kept it at a very high level and you've stayed on what do they call it? The front portion of your brain. And you've always kept this part about you that just kept it together where if you battled to the bottom with me,
Onnie Michalsky (20:08.816)
we would never have made it as far as we did. So we're very different in the way that we traverse life, but very much the same. So as a team, we're awesome. And yeah, we've done very well. And what makes us unique is just...
We're willing to do about anything, whatever came our way. We just took it and we battled and you know what? It might not have been something we liked, but we just continually kept traveling down that same road. So that's what makes us unique. We're strong and we both have our own battles and we both continually go after it. We know that we're pretty strong together and being able to go for those adventures, go for those challenges. You know, when we moved to Montana, that was almost 15 years ago. I was thinking of that this morning.
2009 was when we moved here. But hey, Jace, there's this hotel for sale. You want to buy it? We had no business buying a hotel or like, hey, look at this house. We have to buy it from the code enforcer because it's falling apart and it's going to kill someone. Let's buy it. These things that we did throughout our life, like it really created this challenge, but we're in it together.
Teamwork makes the dream work kind of thing. The whole purpose of this episode is to peel back the curtain as to what drives us, what allows our marriage to sustain and each of us individually.
How are we doing this life? Well, I found it interesting. I got to go to one of your, it was the women's convention and I was so amazed at the way you presented your material in yourself and the way you represented your company. Well, I appreciate you say that because I know that was one of the first, I was like, you've seen me speak. I think well, when you came to 1 million cups and I spoke about my business, you came then and.
Onnie Michalsky (21:54.766)
I think this was the first time seeing me in action talking about what it is I did. And for those of you who didn't go to the local event the other day, it was on quieting your inner mean girl. And so I want to know what was your biggest takeaway from the actual things that I talked about? I know you don't have an inner mean girl, but you definitely have those self doubts. Yeah. And.
unrealistic expectations that can come up. Well, you brought up a few good points about self -doubt and why aren't you doing what you're supposed to be doing? And typically, or not typically, but what you were explaining was, is you hold yourself back. Why are you holding yourself back? You have all this potential and God has a plan for us, correct? We have this plan to do amazing things. But if you're holding yourself back, you're just missing out on life. And I really took that to heart because,
We do that. I don't care if you're a woman, a man, an alien, whatever. We are holding ourselves back and we do it daily. And then if it becomes where we're doing it constantly to ourselves, it just becomes like a habit. And then we're habitual.
offenders of doing nothing. And that's where I'm always amazed with you because you're such a woman of action. You really are. I get a kick out of it. When there's a problem that arises, you always end up taking action. You do not sit there and dwell on the problem. You typically grab a book. You'll grab whatever information you get off the internet or whatever you're listening to your podcast and these groups you're in. You're just so much into the action of solving the problem. And by you actually getting out there and speaking of what you're not only
doing in your own life and trying to inspire other people. Oh, I'm going to say women, cause I was all women to do, to do that was awesome. My other biggest takeaway I should say is just sitting there and watching the women do this and then look at their, you know, their counterparts beside them and say, Oh, I do that. And I was like, on he's hitting it on. He's talking directly to their hearts right now. And I thought that was awesome. I try. That's what I tried to do. Yeah. So I'm glad that I am accomplishing my mission.
Onnie Michalsky (24:04.592)
It's totally right. Right. And I think that's why I get so consumed by my business because it's such a different response that I get. It's kind of allows me to be creative and feel accomplished. And all of the things that I struggle to find at home, I'm able to create in my business, but there's such a strong parallel between my personal growth, my relationships, my business. It amazes me how, how.
it's all weaved together. And when I'm like working on one, it helps to improve the other. And it's a cool thing that's happening. What do you think of Moms Without Capes? So far, five years into it.
I might edit this part out. Let me hear. So Moms Without Capes, as we speak today, has been a long process to develop this whole business. There's plenty of, I like to call it hot tub conversations on how to keep the business going. Occasionally get to see some of the people that you've helped along the way. And I think that's awesome. As long as you have a group of people that you're helping and you continue to do what you do and just be a woman of action. Like,
you always are, I think you'll be successful. Thanks, Jay. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. You're helping people. And what else are we supposed to do? I'm trying. That's what we're created to do, right? So that is it for today. Thank you so much for coming on. I know you wanted to be down here in the basement with me and I sent you back upstairs and said, this isn't how it works. We only have one microphone down here. So I appreciate you. Okay. Love you sweetie. Still coming on.
Love you, Jace. If you want to lighten the mental load and feel like you and your partner are on the same team again, then learn how easy it is to implement the Fair Play method now. All you have to do is visit momswithoutcapes.com/FairPlay and fill out the application. As a certified Fair Play facilitator, I will work with you and your partner to redistribute the household and child care labor in a way that brings you closer together with your partner, helping you to lighten your mental load.
Onnie Michalsky (26:17.454)
Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Without Capes. As you hopefully learned from tuning in, there are so many benefits to hanging up your cape and reclaiming your own sense of identity within motherhood. Yes, being a mom is significant, but you are so much more. Please take care of yourself because you are worth it.
