‘It took a lot of really open conversations to get here’: Steph Claire Smith on pregnancy pressure, her Kic empire and expecting baby No. 2

Mega-influencer Steph Claire Smith talks bounce-back culture and the surprising reaction her 1.5 million Instagram followers had to her ADHD diagnosis.

Between finding herself ranked among the top business personalities in Australia, receiving an ADHD diagnosis and having a second child on the way, Kic health and wellness platform co-founder and podcaster Steph Claire Smith has had quite the year.

In an interview on the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About, the 30-year-old former model opens up about the delicate balance of juggling a business and babies, and why her diagnosis came with relief, not fear.

Stellar: You’ve just announced that you and your husband Josh, who already have a three-year-old son, Harvey, are expecting your second child. Did you feel a lot of pressure from your followers asking questions about when this would happen, all while trying to run Kic, the health and wellness app and podcast you co-founded with your friend Laura Henshaw almost a decade ago?

Steph Claire Smith: I think it’s still that presumption that if you’re going to have one, then you’ve got to give him a sibling. That pressure is a lot to deal with. I wasn’t in a position where I could – nor did I want to – just pop [babies] out and [fall pregnant] straightaway. I didn’t have that desire. It would have been really, really hard with what we were trying to do with the business. [Kic] was my baby for such a long time that it does get priority sometimes over some personal desires. It was kind of through this period where we knew it was something that we wanted, but we didn’t really know [when] it was going to feel right. It took a lot of really open conversations, even between Laura and I, [to work out] when that might feel right.

‘I was a little naive!’ Steph Claire Smith. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Stellar: How did you grapple with making the decision that was both right for you and your family, and the business you share with Laura?

Steph Claire Smith: I’ll be really transparent here. With the first pregnancy, I was a little naive as to how that might affect the business or even my relationship with my co-founder. There were so many times that we didn’t have some of those important, honest conversations through that process. I was almost the guinea pig [as] Laura still hasn’t had a child.

When I had Harvey, that wasn’t something that she could necessarily relate to and I was also experiencing it for the first time. I’m a lot more aware now, second time around, of the different ways that I can still support the business or support Laura or be really honest and clear with her about my needs, but also really aware of how it’s affecting her or the business. Because my personal decisions and my personal life are important and my desires 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.

Listen to Steph Claire Smith on the new episode of Something To Talk About:

Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

‘I hate bounce-back culture!’ Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Stellar: What are your thoughts on bounce-back culture and how you, as a high-profile woman who is both a fitness expert and a former model, have navigated that pressure?

Steph Claire Smith: I hate bounce-back culture. We did a poll of about 15,000 women in our community and four in five of them felt that pressure to bounce back after they’d had a kid, which is horrible. I’ve gone through my own journey of my body image and disordered eating and what I learnt through that was that it’s so not worth it.

Where you end up with your mental health and your energy and everything when you try to sacrifice so much or do absolutely anything in your power to look a certain way, you rarely get to a point where you’re actually happy.

Stellar: Last month, you went public with your recent ADHD diagnosis, revealing that you had spent much of your life telling yourself you were “dumb, lazy, unreliable, disrespectful of others’ time”. Has this diagnosis helped explain some of that negative internal dialogue to you?

Steph Claire Smith: It wasn’t until about six months ago that I made the decision to get the assessment. My biggest fear was that they were going to turn around and be like “You don’t have ADHD” or “There’s nothing else that I could diagnose you with” because then I would [think]: So everything that I’ve told myself over the years is true; this is all stuff that I really could have easily changed and I just have for some reason chosen not to … That would kill me. I was relieved.

I’ve kind of grieved and looked back at moments where I was really, really hard on myself or when 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. I also could have spoken to myself a lot kinder. So there have been reflection moments that have made me quite sad and upset. But all in all, I’m feeling really positive about it.

See the full shoot with Steph Claire Smith inside the latest issue of Stellar. Picture: Stellar

Stellar: Have you had to deal with a lot of commentary since sharing your diagnosis publicly?

Steph Claire Smith: I have 1.5 million followers, so I had no doubt there would be a handful of them that were going to have something to say. There’s a horrible sentiment online at the moment with ADHD. I think because a lot of women were underdiagnosed and a lot of people are coming out with the diagnosis [now], people think it’s this “trend”. People are just getting sick of hearing about it. I was very aware of that. It was one of the things that made me really nervous about sharing it. Recently I had to look into my [follower count for a client] and I noticed there was a massive spike in unfollows. I looked at the date and it was the day I posted about my ADHD diagnosis.

It made me a bit angry because, number one, I don’t want to care about this. But two, how horrible is that? That someone’s vulnerable enough to open up about something that they’ve gone through and you just decide that that’s not for you and to leave? But very quickly, I was like, “Well, they’re not my people; they’re not the kind of people I want in my community if they don’t accept vulnerable stuff or honesty.” I was OK with it, but it was one of those moments that I was really just kind of disappointed in society.

‘We’re nowhere near done yet!’ Steph Claire Smith and her close friend and Kic co-founder, Laura Henshaw. Picture: Supplied

Picture: Supplied

Stellar: You and Laura met over a decade ago while working as models at Melbourne Fashion Week and have grown your business from the recipe e-book that you launched in 2015 into the multifaceted business it is today. Tell us a little bit about how the two of you have grown together over that time.

Steph Claire Smith: Laura and I have that kind of friendship that when people meet us, they think we’ve known each other our whole lives and they’re surprised to find out we actually only met a year before we started our e-book. We had gone through very similar struggles with dieting and exercise and our bodies, so we had that shared desire to do something about it and to use our platforms for good in that way.

Listen to Steph Claire Smith on the new episode of Something To Talk About:

There have been moments where I’ve felt fearful of our friendship weakening because we’re in different phases, like she just doesn’t get me or I maybe just don’t get her any more. 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 boiling in the background and becoming way worse than they need to be. We’ve only learnt 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. Having her on this journey is what’s got me through. And I know for her it’s the same. It’s been awesome and we’re so excited for what’s to come because we’re certainly nowhere near done yet.

See the full shoot with Steph Claire Smith inside the latest issue of Stellar, via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD), and Sunday Mail (SA). Her episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, is out now.

For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.