ABOUT Michelle Nichols

Present Work

Michelle Nichols was the Savvy Selling columnist for BusinessWeek.com for six years. She now devotes her full time efforts to encourage working parents to hug their kids. In 2008, she started the Hug Your Kids Today project, wrote the handbook - Hug Your Kids Today! 5 Key Lessons for Every Working Parent - and created a national holiday - National Hug Your Kids Day - July 21, 2008. The holiday will be the third Monday of July in future years.

Ms. Nichols was spurred to start this new work in memory of her son, Mark Nichols, who died suddenly at age 8 1/2 years old in 1998, from brain cancer. She now shares her insights on life, business, and being a working parent, with other working parents nationwide.

During her years with BusinessWeek, once a year she wrote a column about the struggle to juggle the heavy demands of work and family. As she studied and thought about the emerging idea of "work-life balance," she realized it was the wrong conversation, the wrong goal entirely! Instead of balancing livelihoods and lives, she came to see that it was wiser - and saner - to prioritize "family first and work a close second."

Prior Work

In her years with BusinessWeek, Ms. Nichols also recorded 45 interview-style podcasts for BusinessWeek. They ranked near the top 20 in the world for sales podcasts. Her first guest was Mr. Zig Ziglar. She also was a professionals speaker and consultant. Ms. Nichols has spoken to thousands of salespeople. Her clients included Hewlett-Packard, Hibernia Bank, the National Association of Business Owners and the Association of Association Executives.

Prior to her association with BusinessWeek.com, she was a long-time professional salesperson and two-time entrepreneur.

Ms. Nichols is a member of the prestigious National Speaker's Association, past Chair of the Sales speakers at NSA and current leader of the Reno chapter of NSA.

Some candid photos of Michelle Nichols and her life.

"It's show time!"	"Happy Holiday" wreath from a client	If you see my white Chevy Tahoe with this plate, wave at me.

Formal education
Ms. Nichols graduated from the University of California at Davis with Highest Honors in 3 1/4 years with a B.S. in Agricultural and Business Economics. She had internships at a major investment brokerage and a financial planning company. She has since read over 300 books on sales, marketing and business and taken dozens of sales and business classes.

Personal

Ms. Nichols has been married to Ron for over 20 years. They are the parents of three children, two dogs, two fire-belly frogs and a red-eared slider turtle named "James Pond." She has lived and worked on all three coasts - New Jersey, Texas and California. She and her family now live in Reno, Nevada. For fun, she likes to drive her travel trailer around the U.S. to visit friends, family and historical sites, play the stock market, read chick lit, grow roses and tomatoes in her garden, and bake chocolate chip cookies.