Steph Claire Smith flips the script on planning a family

also expecting her second child. On today's episode, Is Something to Talk About, Steph opens up about how her and her husband's approach to juggling business and babies has sparked not only conversations among their peer group, but online, and reflects on why her ADHD diagnosis has come with relief and not fear. Steph Claire Smith, Welcome to the Stellar podcast.

list and everything, it still ceases to amaze me. When things like that happen, I think back to kind of where I thought my life was going when I was a teenager, and I would have never imagined being in those kind of magazines or anything so or lists amongst

those kind of people. So it's still very surreal for me, but it's also such an awesome, awesome opportunity to acknowledge how far Kicks come and you know, get the acknowledgment and celebration that it deserves as a business, which I'm incredibly proud of, And I think the only thing I would have loved with both of those achievements is to have been there with my co founder and my best mate Laura and get kind of the recognition for the both of us, because we constantly say to each other

like Kick wouldn't be where it is without either of us, and I wouldn't be where I am without her, even in my personal life. So it's been quite a special couple of months, particularly a lot of those things have happened not just this year, but in the last couple of months, so it's been a bit of a whirlwind.

like when you're going to have another one. You said, you just want to remind everyone it's such a delicate question. You've got to be careful, you said, because it's not everyone's choice. It is such a reminder. I think that we're still very presumptuous with the questions. It's never enough, is it whatever you're doing, It's always like, when's this going to happen? What else do you have to share with us?

it's not going to happen for you. It's like, I've already thought about the fact that, you know, my little one might not have a sibling, and that's already something that I'm dealing with, and now you're kind of saying it, proving it my point even more and making me feel worse about it. So I think it's just I mean, it even comes down to like asking people if they're

going to have kids at all. Like, at the end of the day, everyone's really different with how they want to live their life and the direction that they're going in, and their phases and stuff can and the desires can change as well, and that's totally allowed. But I think it's still that presumption that if you're going to have one, then you've got to give him a sibling.

really close in age. But for me, it was just I didn't have that desire, and even if I had the desire, it would have been really really hard with what we were trying to do with the business. So pretty soon after he was born, I went straight onto protection so that.

and it was something that my partner desired. But with what we were doing with the business, it just it was really hard to find that right and appropriate time that felt good personally in our personal lives but also made sense for the business. Because there was a time

when Kick was my baby. I mean, like I refer to it differently now because I have a human baby and another on the way, But at the end of the day, It's been a huge passion of mine still is to this day, and that was my baby for such a long time that it does get priority sometimes over some personal desires. And that is also because I'm not alone in it. I've got a team that I'm responsible for, and I've got a business partner to be responsible with as well to make sure that the business

kind of keeps ticking along and growing. So, yeah, it was kind of through this period where we knew it was something that we wanted, but we didn't really know what it was going to feel right, And it took a lot of really open conversations, you know, even between

Laura and I of when that might feel right. And some of my friends who don't own businesses or aren't in that space, they were really like a bit confused with some of those conversations, Like they were like, it's weird that it has to be so planned and so structured, Like surely, whatever happens, it'll be and you guys will

just sort it out. And I'm like, yeah, I can understand why you think that way, but I think when you're just in that mindset and in that growth stage as well with the business, you're just so aware that things like this do really affect the business, so you have.

third baby in kick is one of your values. And I think that's okay because the same way that we encourage our friends, clearly, like your friends and loved ones have said, don't worry too much about that. I think the flip side is also true is if people go, well, I want to be prioritizing another part of my life right now, or I actually have a really legitimate business

reason that the time isn't right. I think we've also got to give one another the grace that that is also the path to everyone making their own decision.

of been a glass half full person. But I think what happened with the first pregnancy is I might have been a little naived as to how that might affect the business or even my relationship with my co founder. And there was so many times that we didn't have some of those important honest conversations through that process, and I was almost the guinea pig for us both. Like Laura still hasn't had a child, She's now put out there that it's a desire of hers somewhere in the future.

But when I first had Harvey, that wasn't something that she could necessarily relate to, and I was also experiencing it for the first time. So I think I am just a lot more aware now second time around of the different ways that I can.

are really important. I don't want to ever ignore them because when I have in the past, and when I have recently, it's made me not a very nice person towards myself and then also sometimes to others just because I feel a little resentful. So I definitely don't want to not lean into my desires. But it's also about being very aware of how it affects others for sure.

my life as well through content and podcasts. But it was probably around six months that I started to actually physically be back in the office just a couple of days a week. Then it was three days, and it was four days and eventually five. So it was kind of through that transition where I started to be open about the fact that Josh was at home and at the start, Harvey wasn't in daycare. We did cop a little bit of judgment, but they were just from the

really opinionated trolls that you here online. It wasn't really from friends or family. I think Josh occasionally would hear from a lot of his friends hadn't they're not They weren't in that phase of life yet, so they couldn't even relate to their partner being pregnant or having a baby, let alone them being the state home dad in their situation. But they made a few, you know, jokes to him about like how if he had a hard day or whatever. He's like, mate, you will know what hard work is

or whatever, because they just couldn't relate. But I think he's been really open with them about their experience. And I think what's really special about that is when they do have a partner or decide to have kid, and some of them have now, I think they've got a little bit more of an idea of if their partner is the one that stays home from work and does look after the baby, what's involved with that and how hard that can be. So that's been really cool as well,

but it is totally different for him. I mean, I formed a little bit of a mother's group. I ended up not going going through the council one because there was a couple of women in my area who I was kind of already acquaintance with, and we went out for coffee, got along like a house on fire, and just was like, Okay, this is our group now. And I still speak to them almost every week in WhatsApp and try and catch up when we can.

Because we were kind of in this really heavy stage with Harvey where if I was around, he just needed all of me and like no one else could come near us. It wasn't just because I knew it was probably going to be hard, but for work, the hours of pick up and drop off just didn't work for me.

of like I might as well go get him. And I remember when I first posted about Josh's reaction, because he kind of went through what a lot of parents do when they are the first people to you know, drop off their kid, and it's really hard, and he was crying so much because this person who he'd been with every single day for two years suddenly was in

someone else's care. I posted about it, and I thought it was really beautiful and everything, but I got a few dms from people being like, I can't believe, or even maybe it was a couple of months later, I can't believe you still haven't done a drop off or a pickup, especially that first one. I would have dropped everything for my kid to do that and I'm like, well, that's really nice. If that's what you would have done, cool, that's your prerogative. But I wasn't in a position where

I could do it. The day that he started, we had a massive planning day with the team, and it was just something that I had no flexibility with and that is what it is. And then from there it was a decision between Josh and I that it was going to be easier through that phase when he was finding it difficult for it to be Josh because he found saying goodbye to Josh at that point a little

easier than saying goodbye to me. So that does come up every now and again, and of course it feeds into the guilt a little bit, but I try and ignore it as much as I can, and I think the only time it really hits me is when maybe I'm feeling vulnerable because something else is going on, and I'm just yes, things like that might hit me a little bit harder, But at the end of the day, I kind of put myself in a position where if I heard my friend was getting spoken to like that,

I'd have some pretty quick words to say to support them, and I just try and do that for myself definitely.

that's right, Steph. I'd love to also speak to you a little bit about bounce back culture, specifically with one of the programs that you work on at Kick, which of course has been Kick Bump, and for you particularly and for Laura as well, of course, with your shared background obviously having modeling and fitness, and then knowing that there's this really lovely middle ground that you're capturing between taking care of yourself and not having to sacrifice your

fitness or time to yourself or your well being because you're a mother, if that's a part that a person chooses to go down. But then this pressure, which obviously you know, body image, body fascism is not a new concept. Certainly don't need to tell somebody that has worked as a model how bad it is. What are your thoughts on bounce back culture and how you, as a high profile woman of navigate that.

annoys me so much about it. And as you kind of touched on, I have gone through my own journey of my body image and disordered eating, and what I learned through that was just that it is so not worth it, like where you end up with your mental health and your energy and everything like that, when you try and sacrifice so much or do absolutely anything in your power to look a certain way, you just rarely

ever get to a point where you're actually happy. And so with kick Bump, the whole reason we launched it, I mean, for a couple of years, there were people in our community who were falling pregnant and were asking the question, you know, what content in the app is suitable for me during my pregnancy or getting back into exercise. So it was something that was on our radar, but Laura and I couldn't necessarily relate to those women because

neither of us had been through it. And I felt pregnant and started to look more in detail into what was out there for pregnant women and then, of course the postpartum period. I got really angry because a lot of the pregnancy programs were very regimented and the wording

around it just didn't seem very right. And I know from speaking to some of my friends that everyone's pregnancy is so wildly different, and so it just felt so weird that there was such a prescribed kind of program that was so obviously not going to work for so many people. A lot of them were really long workouts, some of them were even Yeah, it was just didn't seem right to me, and I think what I loved

is just listening to my body. And I mean, I'm super fortunate to have access to, you know, the experts that we do with KICK that if I ever needed extra assistance, I could reach out to them. But it was through that that I learned, Okay, there needs to be a lot more education out there and support for these women. And then postpartum, I think what angered me the most was almost every program out there was about getting your body back, like using those words in that term.

And I was really angered by this because like the media does enough to pressure you into feeling that way and to feeling that that is something that.

aesthetics and perfectionism and all that. Because if I had fallen pregnant when I was in that phase, like and my heart goes out to anyone who is you know there, that is so much harder.

is that return to exercise. If you are someone who wants to do. That is so so important to get right and to do slowly and carefully. There are so many women who, you know, they think after six weeks they might get the GP kind of clearance to go and start exercising again, but they're not really empowered with the information and how to do that, and they might try and.

of exercises. And so our postpart and period is really all about building back up your pelvic floor and your deep core muscles and not a lot else, because that's kind of the foundation that every women, no matter if you've had a C section or a vaginal birth, that you need to work on before you start doing any

other kind of exercise. And then from there, we've got another program which has been more of a recent edition called Bridge, which is supposed to bridge people between that really early postpart and period to okay, I'm going to do some squats now and some push ups and add a little bit of resistance and everything kind of get me back in to beginner level exercise. And yeah, just supporting women through that time is so important to us.

And I think being pregnant again second time around, it's brought back even more.

ADHD diagnosis myself in the past few years. When you spoke about it on Instagram early this year, you said how you'd sat for too long in this daily feeling of guilt and shame for not being this person that I wanted to be, or this person that I know would be more likable to others. Maybe I've had this internal dialogue for too long now that's led me to believe I'm dumb, lazy, unreliable, disrespectful of others. Time getting this diagnosis has lifted some of that really powerful words there.

How are you feeling as you and I are speaking in late November.

do that in the future, I don't know. But yeah, I'm kind of at this point now where I'm just going to lean more into what can I do to help manage now that I know what's going on, instead of just kind of continuously doing the same thing, being frustrated with myself, really agree at myself and feel like I'm disappointing others. I'm now aware of what it is. I don't want to just use it as an excuse, like by no means, So what are the different things that I can do to help myself? And then also

the people around me? And I'm so so fortunate that all of my close friends and family who I opened up to before I opened up.

been so fortunate with because I do know. I mean, before I was diagnosed, there's been conversations where I've either admitted myself like I've said, oh, you know, I've been thinking like maybe I'll look into getting an ADHD diagnosis, or I'm in a situation where I'm in a room and I can hear someone else saying that, and instantly people are like, oh, but doesn't everyone have.

you think that you're just for? You know, you just happen to have all of these symptoms ongoing every day, all aligned, and they're all ticking the boxes, but you're still not quite ADHD, Like, of course, let's look into it, like it's not just a coincidence that all of these

things happened to you frequently. And I think hearing that gave me a little bit of a confidence boost and so yeah, over the last year I kind of considered it more, lent into the information more, but it wasn't really until about six months ago that I made the decision Okay, I feel like I'm ready to get the assessment. And my biggest fear with it was that they were going to turn around and be like, you don't have

ANYHD because honestly, or nothing else. You know, there's nothing else that I could diagnose you with, because I think then I would have been like, okay, great, So everything that I've told myself over the years is true.

to and that would kill me. So I think in a way it was I was relieved, but I think and people warned me about this, But there has been moments where I've almost kind of grieved moments and I've looked back at moments where I was really really hard on myself or when maybe some of my close relationships have struggled, and they've all been things that if I was aware of my ADHD diagnosis, I could have managed a lot better, and I also could have spoken to

myself a lot kinder. So there's been reflection moments that have made me quite sad and upset, but all in all, like above all, I'm feeling really positive about it, and I just the only reason were not the only reason. One of the biggest reasons I opened up about it was because number one, I've always been very open on my social media over the last thirteen years, I've been

very much an open book. And every time I've done that and touched on something vulnerable, like even when I did open up about my bingeating and everything, I was mainly met with either support and information or empowerment or people sliding into my dams being like thank you so much for speaking about this because I feel a little bit less alone now and something comforting and knowing that someone like you, who I aspire to in one way

or another, also has these feelings or goes through these things. And I thought the same when I got the ADHD diagnosis. Is that I've met some pretty incredible people over the last couple of years, particularly we've had a later diagnosis.

I haven't looked at them any differently when they've you know, come out with the diagnosis, and I just really hoped for the same thing for me, and I've been really fortunate for the most part that it has been met with a lot of a lot of support, which because of the community that's been cultivated, it's unsurprising, the most beautiful community ever, but it's still it's still overwhelmingly amazing and positive.

ADHD looks like, and you're not it. But also that conversation, which is something that you know, I've discussed on the podcast here with some very high profile people who've been diagnosed, that there is still this idea that it's a fad. And obviously there's very profound clinical reasons why we're now seeing it being diagnosed, particularly in women and girls, because

it was chronically underdiagnosed for a long time. But from a social media macromedia perspective, it's much easier to go, oh, well, everyone's just getting it these days, you know, it's like the new fad. So have you had to deal with a little bit of that commentary since you went public with your diagnosis.

I don't ever look at my following number. I am not an analytical person like probably because of my ADHD, but just numberus is not my friend, and so I hate looking at data or anything like that. Whenever I'm asked to look at my insights or be aware of anything, I'm like, okay, I will, but I can't tell you

the last time I did this. But recently I had two for a client look into my insights and I noticed, you know, weekly you get some people following you and unfollowing you, and always a bit of a plateau for me anyway, but there was a massive spike in unfollows and I looked at the date and it was the day that I posted about my ADHD diagnosis, and it made me a bit angry because one number one, I was like, I don't want to care about this, But two, I was like, how horrible is that that you know

someone's vulnerable enough to open up about something that they've gone through and just decide that that's not for you and to leave. But then very quickly I was like, well, they're not my people. They're not the people that I want to be speaking to anyway. They're not the kind of people I want in my community if they don't accept vulnerable stuff or honesty. So I was okay with it, but it just it was one of those moments that I was really just kind of disappointed in.

is an actual medical condition. We don't want to go live in a society surely where people have to now start thinking twice about I'm going to get blowback on my follow account is going to start declining if I, you know, go go in areas where people might not necessarily want to follow me.

think for me it was important to talk through. It's not been easy, and I certainly would not have been able to do it alone. But there is ways in which that it actually is super bet official as a founder in business, and I want to continue to explore that and talk about it. But I think, yeah, for me, it would have just felt like a big fat elephant in the room if I didn't talk about it.

successful business. So before we wrap up our conversation today, Steff, I did want to talk to you a little bit about the business, but also going back to one of the first things we talked about at the start was when you were talking about your co founder Laura and the moments that you share together and having been on

this incredible ride together. Love to talk to you a little bit about working with your best friend, your co founder, and then as you've touched upon your lives obviously being very different, because that's not an unusual circumstance in business. A lot of co founders have got very different circumstances. But as you say, if one of you gets an award, there's that feeling. Tell us a little bit about how the two of you have grown together and the highs

and the lows. If you like a couple that might stand out for you in this path together.

good in that way. And so I think when we came together and started working on Kick, neither of us had any idea where it was going to grow to. Obviously we had different ambitions, but I think the biggest thing that we did was just take opportunities, you know, by the reins, and say yes a lot and embrace failure along the way, or you know, look back at some decisions and think, oh, you know, our guts were probably pretty on at that time, saying we shouldn't do this,

but we did it anyway. And now we've learned that our gut feeling is something to lean into. But that's okay, that's what running a business looks like. And we've now been doing that for almost ten years together. And so I think also as an individual, you go through so much growth in your twenties, from early twenties to your thirties, like so much change and stuff happens in your personal life as well. It's been really cool to both be

there together through a lot of that. Spend a lot more time with your I mean team in general, but especially your founder, your co founder. Then you do a lot of your loved ones, and so it's really important that that is quite a healthy relationship. And over the years it's only gotten stronger. And the only way that that happened was because we had to have some like

really honest and open conversations. And I think, as you said, with the different phases of life that were in necessarily now that mainly shifted when Harvey was born or when I became pregnant with Harvey. Up until that point, we were pretty on par with where we were out in life and what excited us and everything like that. So reflecting back and also knowing now it can be quite jarring,

and I do. Actually there's been moments where I've felt and she knows this, but there's been moments where I've felt fearful of, you know, our friendship weakening because we're in different phases and like she just doesn't get me, or like I maybe just don't get her anymore or whatever.

But again, it's been through addressing that and talking about it and just being really honest that that's really the only way you can kind of push past those things without them kind of boiling in the background and becoming way worse than they need to be. And we've only learned that through having those conversations. So we're trying to have them more and more these days. But I think just the love and respect that we have for each other is what's got us through some of those tougher

transitions or hard times in business. And I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. And I'm not just saying that, you know, because of being very like I have a clear understanding of things that I struggle with and challenges that I have, especially since the diagnosis, and it's made a lot of sense.

So I think for me, you know, being older and working in mainstream media for much of my career, there's often been a quite an overt conversation about quote unquote women's media and people blatantly talking, oh, we don't want women on radio, and people feel like they're getting nagged by their wives and just this really like quite regressive narrative. And love to ask your thoughts as a young woman.

And we've seen, between you and Laura and some other really high profile successful women in their twenties and thirties, this sort of new face of multimedia, I think, and I'd love to know whether you are still encountering that sort of sexist trope or do you think that it's hopefully getting a little bit wound back. Do people come after you for the way that you talk or talking

about frivolous things. I mean, we've obviously touched upon a little bit about this in terms of parenting, but yeah, for you as women working in the media, I would really like to hear whether you think things are getting better or not.

And I think she's now got a healthier relationship with it than how she necessarily used to take some of the feedback, like she's able to read a comment now, you know, from some random that might say something like she laughs too much in the podcast, and she's able to be like, Okay, well that's ridiculous and just don't listen to the podcast.

we love to also listen and hear about. And it's the taboo topics that we don't understand why aren't spoken

about more. But just recently I did I shared a funny story on the podcast and we posted a snippet and there was so much judgment on that, and unfortunately it wasn't just sexist, you know, it wasn't just men saying it, which there was definitely men saying that it shouldn't be spoken about and that stuff should be private between marital spouses and stuff like that, but there was women in the comments as well, basically bringing us down and talking about how horrible it is and what would

Harvey think when he grows up seeing this content and everything, and that kind of just annoys me.

much into the feedback that we receive. And it's not that I don't like constructive feedback because we're really lucky in the team that we've got, you know, with Listener, they're our producer and everyone in the team at Listener, like they do give us feedback and they've you know, helped us grow so much as podcasters over the last

couple of years. It's those people and the regular listeners that we survey and ask directly for feedback that I'm always open to hearing, like how we can improve it or what topics they're interested in, what they're not, et cetera. But for the outskirts, I just feel like, just scroll on by or do not listen, Like I'm not forcing you to listen into this, And yeah, try not to think about it too much.

And something that we talked about on the podcast quite recently with another guest who was quoting Brene Brown, you know, about being in the arena and this It is such a great quote and we were sharing it among our team because I think it's just such a resonant point anytime that you take a risk or make yourself vulnerable, whoever it is, whoever any of us are, whether it's just opening up about something, talking about a diagnosis or something that's going on in our family, or talking openly

about sexuality, these are things that people do welcome, and sometimes it can make people uncomfortable, and as you say, that's okay, but don't I think work through that feeling of discomfort by coming after people or trying to silence them.