The Topline: Consultant, Lawyer, Mom, Stepmom, Candidate

During the busy 2020 election season, we had the chance to conduct a special Topline interview with Stephanie Hanna, a mother and stepmother of four who has her own consultancy and is running for office in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas in Ohio. We caught up with Stephanie outside the early voting center, where she was meeting voters on the third day of polling in Columbus.

Thanks for fitting us into your day today. Can you just tell us a little bit about your family and work scenarios right now?

Stephanie: Yes, thanks for having me. I’m Stephanie--I've been married for a little over five years. I have two step-kids, they are 20 and 17. And two kids, one who just turned four and one who's about two and a half. I wear a couple of different hats, but right now I am campaigning and running to be a judge in our Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court, which is the court that handles divorce, dissolution, and child custody.

My husband works from home, and even before COVID he worked remotely, most of his colleagues are either overseas or in New York. He did have a coworking space, since COVID now he's at home. And I also have a business called The Other 85, and I do professional development coaching for lawyers and other professionals, and I run that mostly out of my house. We are both working parents working from home. And the two older kids, one of them is a senior in high school, and the two little kids have been in daycare most of their lives, absent the four month gap when there was no daycare.

How did you guys manage during that time? 

Stephanie: Most of my clients were on a standstill. So it just worked out that I was on mostly kid duty, and then I would fit in campaigning and work stuff. But we were all home altogether for all four months. Just like many of you were, I'm sure.

How do you campaign with two little kids?

Stephanie: I think you have to have a partner who is fully on board. And lucky for me, my husband actually has worked with political campaigns much of his life, and he is passionate about it. He knew probably better than me before I got into it what was really entailed. He has just stepped up. I mean, I think that's how you do it. You have to prioritize that the campaign is going to get busier the closer we get to November, when we're in these last four weeks. He's in charge of home stuff and kid stuff, and my job is to campaign and that's how you get through it and you know it's just for a short period of time.

You're a mom of a blended family, so you've got kids from two to 20, so you've got a real range there. As you're in a court dealing with family cases, that must be helpful in a way to have that perspective as a mom.

Stephanie: I really do think one of the biggest assets that I bring to this role is my role as a step-parent, and really understanding what divorce does to a family, what life can look like several years down the road, the benefit of making sure that you put your children first, put the children first, and really appreciating the strong role that the court has in all of that. If you have a judge who understands that, I think you get a much different outcome than if you have a judge who is just hearing cases and moving on. So I think that perspective is very, very helpful. And I think having gone through it, to a certain extent, from the outside of course, but close enough to where I can appreciate the stress and the emotion, and this is absolutely a low moment, if not the lowest moment in most people's lives who are coming to that court. I just think that perspective just helps me bring a certain level of compassion and understanding and appreciation for what people are going through.

How have these four kids impacted your career?

They have given me almost an audience to show them that they can absolutely do whatever it is that they want.

And coming into the older kids' lives when they were probably about seven and 10, and them getting to see somebody do something different than anything that they had seen before. This is my second time running for office. I ran four years ago and I lost, and it was very close. But my greatest accomplishment is running again, and showing them that they can do it again, as well as starting my business. It motivates me to just make sure that I'm a really good example and giving them perspective and just another viewpoint of how things can be done and approached.

For the little kids, I think it's important for them to see both parents doing things at home, doing things out of the home, being active in the community.

My kids have seen my billboards and my commercials, and I love that they get excited, but also they're like, yeah, that's mom on TV. It's not like, mom, why is that you? Why isn't that dad? It's just part of the routine. And I love that they get a chance to see that.

Do you feel like you've had to take any steps back or down or around them as they've changed ages and phases?

Stephanie: Probably a little bit, initially. I was over 30 when I got married and had my kids. So I was like 32, 33, maybe. I was lucky because I got to have a big chunk of time that was dedicated solely to career, and solely to being involved in the community, and doing whatever I wanted and saying yes to everything. That for me was probably the biggest shift, and it wasn't because, there was no pressure from anyone other than myself. Then when I realized,

Hey, I've made investments in myself, my community, and these relationships for the last 10 years. I can take a couple months to focus on these brand new babies that are here.

And finding that new balance, and then being an entrepreneur, I think really has been the best shift that I made early on, because then I just had a lot more flexibility and control over what my day looked like.

What do you feel like you need in your life in terms of conditions to feel like you're your most creative, like you're hitting on all cylinders, things are really flowing? What does that look like for you?

Stephanie: A lot of it is outsourcing as much as possible, so that I am only focusing on the really important stuff. COVID has hampered that a little bit, but before that, when I'm firing on all cylinders, I am letting go of a lot of stuff, everything from grocery pickup to laundry to all the house stuff, finding ways to outsource that. And here's the kicker, outsourcing and get over it. And outsource can mean to someone else that I'm paying, or it can mean to my husband. That's a role that he wants to take on as long as I'm the one not doing it.

But the kicker with that, whether it's outsourcing to your partner or someone you're paying, you have to get over it. You cannot micromanage it and control it.

It's never going to be done the way that you want to do it. If you're paying someone, you have a little more wiggle room, because you can direct and coach and train as you go on, but otherwise really checking yourself and getting over it, that's the way that I can be my most creative self, because then I can just let all that go and use all that energy on work product, and helping other people, and serving the community. 

We talk about sharing the load. We talk about the unpaid work and who has to do it. But if we don't fully give it up, that really doesn't free up our mental space, which is what we really need.

Stephanie: Yes. I have this conversation, I think, with my mom friends all the time.

We are our biggest enemies. We are the ones standing in our way. Many of us do have people in our lives who are like, I'll help you, just tell me. But then you're like, well, then I have to tell you and then you'll do it wrong and then I'll have to fix it, and it'll be so annoying. It's just quicker to do it myself. Right?

We've all had that narrative and that dialogue in our head. And you have to find a way to circumvent that, because you'll never be able to break through and get to a place of actually letting go and using your time and energy for the really important things.

Is there anything you've added into your family, like a new tradition or a new thing you've been doing that you want to keep going after all this time is over?

Stephanie: I think COVID has actually done a good job in forcing us all to slow down and really reevaluate priorities. Pre-pandemic, my kids would've probably been in soccer and T-ball and 10 other things, but we've just been doing one activity this whole time, and it only recently picked back up again. And everyone was fine. It didn't hamper anybody's growth or ability to play with other people or anything, all the things that you tell yourself, like I need to expose you to everything or else, and nothing bad really has happened. I think it's just forced us to slow down, and I think that will stay for sure.

What have you done just for yourself lately?

Stephanie: Really, and it's not to turn the question around, but really campaigning. This has really been for myself. This is something I want to do, and to have the freedom and flexibility and ability to do it is the greatest privilege of my career. I have also been working out a lot more and more intentionally, and with someone to help me do that and make sure it's on my calendar. And that's probably been a big one over the last maybe six or eight weeks.

I think in general, outside of election season, paying more attention to social circles and investing in relationships, those sorts of things, they fuel me and are things that I enjoy doing.

Do you have a guilty pleasure or a stress-reliever that you go to when it's just all getting to be too much?

Stephanie: I've developed, over the COVID period...Watching all of these interesting relationship shows, I don't know why, is very entertaining to me. I watch Married at First Sight. I also have seen Indian Matchmaker.

If you could design a t-shirt for working parents right now, what would the t-shirt say?

Stephanie: Probably "Get out of your own way." You can actually do, and it's a little tough love. I get that. But I think some of my best girlfriends have said that to me, to my face. And I have said that to them, to their face. And that's what I think makes our relationship the strongest, is when there's something in front of you and you want it and you have 20 billion excuses, and many of them center around family or motherhood or whatever. And when you start digging into it, it's just your perceived reality. It's not what's really going on. And there actually are solutions.

So it might sound a little harsh, but I mean it in the most loving way. Just get out of your own way. You can absolutely do anything that you're trying to do. There may be a season for it or a time for it, but don't limit yourself by your own thoughts.

What about something that I didn't ask you that you think I should be asking more working moms?

Stephanie: Probably, what is something you are the most proud of in terms of your role as a parent or as a working parent? Because I think sometimes it's so natural and easy to talk about all the hard parts, but there's a lot of things that everyone is obviously doing well and doing right, and shining light on those could be cool to hear from other people.

What would it be for you?

Stephanie: It would probably be going after my goals. I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud that my kids can see that, that there is nothing limiting about having children. You just adjust and you pivot.