"The one with the hair" is a moniker she's come to embrace. In 2015, Heidi Stevens considered her then-new photo for her Chicago Tribune column "Balancing Act" unremarkable - until her inbox flooded with commentary from her readers.

She shared a few in a piece for the Chicago Tribune, with gems like.

"For heaven sake, comb your hair."

"My neighbors and I give you permission to shoot your hairdresser."

While Stevens was taken aback by this overwhelming response to a style that is arguably on-trend and beach-y, she took it in-stride and sought to learn why readers were so quick to comment on her appearance along with that of her female colleagues.

She wrote this of the surprising responses: "Each one takes me aback. Not because my hair is above reproach, but because my hair is completely beside the point. It's unremarkable in appearance (not dyed fuchsia, not shaved on one side) and has no relevance to my job: I'm not a model; I'm not selling hair products; I don't work at a salon."

She continued, "Is this really where we're stuck as a culture? At a place where we drown out women's voices with critiques of their hair?"

It was this delightful refusal to be put into an Instagram filter that caught national attention - Today.com, NY Daily News, and AOL - and landed Stevens squarely in my Facebook news feed. She quickly became one of my feminist icons and her column a must-read.

She's written about numerous topics besides her hair (like parenting, the #MeToo movement, health and her reactions to what's happening in the world around her), but people like me keep bringing up the hair incident. And through her writing, I feel like she and I are on grab-a-coffee terms, but I've never gotten to ask her the most pressing question we have around aSweatLife: What are her big goals?

This week on the #WeGotGoals podcast, Stevens popped by to answer that and she shared her 20-year journey with the Chicago Tribune, working across the publication - from an intern to a section editor to a columnist. As we talked through her tenure, she shared that landing her column was the goal that made her the proudest.

"I found myself really called ... to help other people and women especially feel less alone in whatever they were going through," she explained why it means to much to connect with readers week after week.

With an extraordinary tenure, Stevens clearly loves the Chicago Tribune and the field of journalism.

It struck me that this was the tone as I talked to Stevens just before she and 45 other Chicago Tribune Journalists announced they were forming a union, The Chicago Tribune Guild. It's a brave move that has been historically unsupported by a consolidating journalism industry - at least leading to the sale of a publication (the Los Angeles Times) and at-worst the scrubbing of the web of any trace that the publication ever existed (Gothamist/DNA Info).

Listen to this week's episode of #WeGotGoals, and follow @HeidiStevens13 to feel more connected and @CTGuild to support Stevens' brand of journalism.

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Episode transcript:

JAC:Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen and with me I have Maggie Umberger and Kristen Geil.

MU: Good morning, Jeana.

KG: Hi Jeana.

JAC: Hello

KG: Jeana, this week you spoke with Heidi Stevens.

JAC: I did. I spoke with Heidi Stevens, who's been someone I've looked to for advice, for guidance, but she just didn't know it until recently. She has a column in the Chicago Tribune.

MU: nd can you talk a little bit about what that column is because it's incredibly interesting for us at aSweatLife and really for women in general.

JAC: Heidi's column is called Balancing Act and it is a daily column, but she has a few online days and then two print days in the Chicago Tribune. She talks about everything from parenting to feminism to her reactions to news. And it's been incredible to sort of watch her along the way. I started reading her column about three years ago after I caught wind of it when she had this interesting incident with her hair of all things and her readers’ reaction to her hair, but she's been writing the column specifically for five years and she's been a writer in some capacity or working with the Chicago Tribune from for 20.

KG: And Heidi is somewhat of a veteran in the industry. She's seen journalism go through so many major changes over the past several years. How has she adjusted to those changes? What changes has she seen as the most impactful? What in general did she have to say about how journalism has changed?

JAC: Heidi has been a part of the Tribune in some capacity for 20 years. She started as an intern is done everything from copy editor. She said something about being on the mail room at a certain point all the way up to columnist with a daily column, which was her dream that you'll hear about. So she on the inside has seen a lot of changes and she's become a sort of ninja within journalism in that she's able to respond to changes. She's able to adapt to them. She's now producing online content. She has incredible editorial skills, but after our interview, Heidi was part of the organizing committee that announced a guild within the Chicago Tribune, which is another word for a union, so I think she's seen a lot of changes within journalism and she's probably bracing or is embracing more changes as a part of this group as well in the future.

MU: We're thrilled to have Heidi on the podcast. So here is Jeana with Heidi.

JAC:I am Jeana Anderson Cohen on the #WeGotGoals podcast and I'm here with Heidi Stevens of the Chicago Tribune. Thank you for joining me, Heidi.

HS: Thank you for inviting me.

JAC: I have known you through your column for as long as I've been reading it and I've been reading it since I think someone posted to my news feed a few years ago, probably related to the hair incident and I've been following you closely ever since. So I'm excited to talk to you about your, about your goals. So can you first tell us sort of how you spend your days and where readers can find you?

HS: I am at the Chicago Tribune as a full time staff columnist. I write five days a week on ChicagoTribune.com, the digital version of the newspaper and then you'll find me in the Sunday print edition and the life and style section and the Wednesday print edition in health and family.

HS:Those are sort of the two guaranteed print appearances now throughout the week I might here and there show up in arts and entertainment or metro or the Op Ed page, but I'm consistently on the website five, five days a week and then in print at least two days a week. I’m on twitter of course @heidistevens13, I'm on Facebook. I'm a pretty pretty big fan and avid user of social media because I feel like it keeps me really connected to readers and stories and just kind of what people are talking about in that moment.

JAC: And you have been at the tribune since 1998, is that right?

HS:  I have, I’ve been here forever and ever and ever in journalism years. That’s, like, centuries. Yeah, I started here as a 23 year old intern, it was a year long internship and when it ended they hired me on full time and I never left, so I've done a little bit of everything from like page design to working over in the paste up room when we used to have one at our printing plants and then freedom center to copy editing.

HS:I ran a section for awhile called on the town and the column that I write now has been my favorite gig. I've been doing this for five years but. But yeah, at the trip for 20.

JAC: And before we jump into the first big question, I guess we should pay off the hair incident. So about three years ago and I'm sure that you're not sick at all of answering questions related to this.

HS: I’m actually not. I promise.

JAC: Good.  Because I never tire of telling people why I love you and this is why. About three years ago, I know I caught wind of you because a certain photo of you went viral. Can you take it from there?

HS:Oh sure. Yeah, I had a column photo. You know all columnists at the Tribune have their photos run with their reports, with their columns. I had one that was apparently not at all controversial. I really never heard much at all about how I looked in it, so I don’t know if people thought I looked  good or bad or just not remarkable enough to decide. We all as a staff got new column photos. My hair was shorter in my second column photo, it was, I don't know, like beach wavy curls is how I would have described it on a positive note. That’s what I was going for anyway and I mean the hate mail like just started flooding in about how awful I looked in this photo, I had this terrible hair. I looked like I rolled out of bed and came to work and I looked like a messy greasy tramp and you know, what sort of pride did I have in my appearance that I would dare to come to work looking like that, let alone have my photo taken looking like that.

HS:There was just a whole bunch of hate mail from men, from women, from young people, from old people. And I, you know, I, I started asking some other columnists, it's like, do you ever get hate mail about your hair? And to a one, all the women said, oh, sure, yeah, all the time. And all the men said, uh, no. Uh, no. Chris Borelli, a columnist, a features report here at the Tribune who had his photo in the paper for awhile, said, he had a baseball cap on, in his photo. He said, sometimes I get people telling me I should wear a Cubs hat instead of a Red Sox hat, but that's about it. Mary Schmich, you know, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist. Said, oh, that's the majority of my mail is for sure about my hair. So then I was like, you know, I'm going to go ahead and write about this because I think that's interesting.

HS:I interviewed like a gender studies professor at DePaul about, you know, just what our hair kind of represents in this culture sort of appearance-obsessed culture. And I thought she had interesting stuff to say about it. So I wrote a column about it and that just sort of took on a life of its own and I, you know, I got interviewed by Huffington Post and the New York Daily News and today.com and I was on TV and I was on the radio and everybody wanted to talk about this hair hate mail and in a way, you know, and you even made reference to it like, you know, it seems like something you'd quickly grow tired of or find to be a little frivolous. It has been fascinating to me, I would say even three years later, mostly because of what different people bring to that conversation. So somebody might feel ostracized or othered to rely on a little bit of a cliché because of their skin color or because of the shape of their body or the way their, the way they choose to dress or the way they present their gender.

HS:You know, there are just a million different ways in which people feel judged and written off based on the way they look. And so all of those sorts of conversations were coming up from, from readers that I was hearing from and callers and so I just found it to be kind of endlessly interesting to talk about and I was grateful that the Tribune let me kind of go there, about something as seemingly trivial as hair. I still get the, I still got the notes. I still have readers who like literally take the time to cut out my photo. I have a new photo now, it's not that same one, but it's sort of now I've sort of become, you know, the one with the hair so people will cut my photo out and send it to me, get a haircut, you know, why can't you do your hair like Ask Amy? A lot of advice.

JAC:Well, isn't that nice of them?

HS: It's so nice. I know to take the time out of their busy lives.

JAC: Well I know, I know that you, you write about so many things from parenting from a feminist perspective to just commentary on what's happening in the world. But I want to get to your goals and how they've come to life to before I go too off track about hair and my feelings on it. So can you tell me about a big goal that you've accomplished and how you got there?

HS: Yeah, for sure. I, you know, I would say that having, having a column at the Chicago Tribune has been a goal of mine since college and I've always loved to tell stories, you know, true stories, either my own or other people's. That's what I wanted to do more than anything.

HS:When I decided to pursue journalism. At the same time I found myself really called, I would say in my mid- to late thirties really called to help other people and women especially feel less alone in whatever they were going through. And at the time I was going through, you know, I went through a divorce, single mom with two little kids and I'm trying to work full time and pursue this career that I loved and felt lucky to have and live in this crazy city that I love but can sometimes feel a little broken. Navigate the Chicago public school system, just a lot of things that can seem a little daunting to go through and I was going through all of them at once and my editor at the time, thank goodness said, you know, why don't you write about that once a week in a column? And I started to, and it was kind of this perfect marriage of two goals which, you know, were to tell stories, mine and other people's.

HS:And make people feel less alone by telling those stories and, and so that's kind of both my mission and my goal I guess if those aren't exactly the thing.

JAC: And what's interesting as I read your columns, there are a few that sort of stick out to me. I don't have kids, but I know that you have two children and a stepchild and when I read the columns you write about being a mom or even the one you wrote on your birthday. I feel like I'm experiencing a piece of parenting that's almost like, I feel jealous to put it in the best way. I feel like you’re savoring parenting in this way that I don't think I could fathom unless I read your column and it's so interesting to me even what you just wrote about going on the road trip with your son. So do you see it from that perspective?

HS:Well, first of all, thank you so much. That's just a beautiful thing to say. Second, you know, yeah, I, a lot of people who I hear from are not parents or they're done with the kind of day to day work of parenting, their kids are grown or you know. But, but not, not everyone who writes me about my parents had columns in the thick of it the way I am, kids 8, 12 and 17. My stepson’s 17. And I just think that, you know, there's a lot of commonality in the way I kind of struggled to find the best way to relate to my kids that's not so different from the way we all struggle or take joy from or you know, find meaning in the relationships we have with our partners and our siblings and our dearest friends and our parents. And I just think, you know, there's, there's a way of relating to other people that really makes life rich and worth living and for some people that's kids and for some people it's not.

HS:And, and still we all, we all want to feel a connection to other humans, you know? And so I don’t know, I hope that when I'm writing about some of my adventures and fears and triumphs with my kids, people can see themselves in those adventures and, and trials and triumphs—is there a plural for triumphs?  Triumphs? That’s a hard word to say. You know, in their own lives with, with other, with other humans that aren't necessarily children. Yeah.

JAC: And what I love is now, even though you're totally opening—I’m sure you're not opening your life up totally, but you are revealing these sort of raw moments, your divorce, moments with your children and people look to you for advice. I know I saw you on a local TV show here in Chicago after the most recent school shooting and people look to you for those moments to just sort of see what another parent is thinking, and what they're counseling their kids to do. Do you feel like you're an expert?

HS: Yeah, that's such a good question. I, you know, I always shy away from that title because I'm like, ah, I don't have any sort of particular degree or license in anything that would make me qualified to give out child psychology level advice. I think I'm happy, willing and happy to talk about what I try, what I've read, what I've tried, what has worked, what hasn't worked. I'm equally, if not more willing to say here's this thing I tried that really spectacularly failed, including, you know, my first marriage. I just, I don't see any. I suppose it’s naive to say I don't see any stigma. I don't think there should be any stigma. I would prefer to push back against the stigma in you know, trying something and having a network when that comes to parenting, working out, marriage, you name it. You know, try it and if it doesn't work, try a different way.

HS:And so I'm always happy to say here's the thing I just read about it in a book by so and so, and maybe you could try that. Or here's a thing that occurred to me the last time, one of my kids was going through that and here's what I tried and here's how that went. And so I, you know, I very much hope to position myself as somebody who's sort of down in the trenches trying this stuff with you rather than handing advice down to you. Does that make sense?

JAC: Absolutely. And I think that's why you're so approachable and why I think I gravitate towards your writing is because when I read it, I feel like I could one day had children or I could one day navigate these, these hurdles that everyone faces. And that's, that's honestly why I wanted to talk to you.

HS: Well thank you.

HAC:So let's talk about the future. Is there a big goal that you want to accomplish in the future and how do you plan to get there?

HS: Yeah, I, you know, I really want to write books. I think that's, that's a pursuit. I would really enjoy doing, the physical writing of it and I also just love the idea of reaching a totally different audience, not necessarily a newspaper reading or website reading audience. And then engaging in a dialogue with that audience. I mean that, that to me is half the fun of this work is hearing from the people who have read something and then getting their questions or even their criticism. I just, I like that dialogue. I like hearing what, what you related to and what you couldn't at all relate to and I think that would be really fun on a book tour or you know, long after the book is released and people are, you know, hopefully buying and reading it.

HS:You don't want to write a book that no one reads. You know, to be able to share my stories and stories of, of people who I've been inspired by and learned from. Um, and a book is something I, I really hope to do. How am I getting there? That's a great question. I have a little word document file on my laptop that I, you know, go to and jot down notes. And, you know, I have sort of a loose introduction to a book and I'm at this point, I'm in the note taking phase, that note-taking phase might last a decade. I, you know, I don't know, I, I have a pretty, pretty specific way that I want to parent my kids and that requires me to be around and present with them a lot. And I, you know, I just don't, I don't want to hole myself up in my room and write while they're 8 and 12] and want me around and want to play with me in the basement and want me to come to all their lessons and I want to do that stuff.

HS:So, so I don't think it's something I'm going to get to in the next couple years because my kids, they're just the ages that, you know, they need, they need me around a lot. They want me around a lot and I want to be there. But down the road I think I'll collect all those notes and all these life experiences and put them in a book, you know. And it's um, well it's a balancing act to quote the name of my column. To decide what is fair game for me to write about and what is not fair game in terms of like, you know, my kids’ experiences and their right to a private life and, and, and it's not so much like, oh, what stories should I tell and not tell about them because I think I have a pretty good sense of that already. I don’t—I don't tell anything about them. I don't write anything about them that I wouldn't say out loud in front of them to like company in our kitchen, you know what I mean?

HS:I'm not telling stories about bed wetting or crushes or puberty year things that they would be like, oh my God, how could you. I would never do that to them. But there are stories about my first marriage, about dating as a single mom about, you know, things like that, that, that feel very much like my stories. But, but once they're out there for people to read, you know, then there are also stories about June and Will's mom and, and so that's a, that's a tricky thing to navigate and I want to make sure I do that well. And that means not doing it like rushed, you know.

JAC: So I, I know that I read, I've read several column in which you've mentioned your ex husband, the two of you are co parenting, correct?

HS: Um, to a degree. Yeah. I mean he, yeah, he lives in Valparaiso, Indiana. So he's two hours away. It makes the day to day co parenting. Not really possible. He doesn't, he's not, he's not around physically to co-parent, but we share custody of them, and you know, talk through decisions and stuff like that.

JAC:  And as, and as you write about him in that divorce, is that something that you're sort of comfortable sharing or are there sort of boundaries that you don't cross it with that?

HS: Yeah, there are mostly because I'm really protective of my kids’ relationship with him, you know. I just, I want them to have the opportunity to develop their own relationship with their dad that's not colored by something I've written about him or said about him in public. I don't ever want them to feel like they have to choose which parent to be loyal to. I just sort of, I don't say much about my relationship with him other than kind of the broadest terms that the kids already know.

HS:You know, that we, we struggled on division of labor at home, it always felt a little—more than a little, awfully unfair to me. My kids know that, so I'm happy to say that. And I like his new wife a lot. I've written about that. That is something that I think people should feel like they have permission to do and to talk about, you know, liking their ex's new partner. I think that if you can work on doing that, it's really good for your kids. So I’m happy to talk about that. I just, yeah, I just haven't felt like it's right to bash him or, or going to a whole lot of detail about, you know, what, what drove me to end that marriage for, you know, for my kids’ sake.

JAC: So in lieu of advice. So if someone were to ask you what is one question you should ask someone who is going through a divorce, what piece of advice would you give to them?

HS:So, so your friend is going through a divorce, what should you say to them?

JAC: Yeah, because I feel like people struggle with how to have conversation with someone who's going through a hard time, whether that's divorced or whether that's losing a parent. And when, when people say nothing, it can often just still feel like they're alone. You're, you're sort of sharing your story and people are feeling less alone through you sharing, but how can I help my friend or what can I talk to my friend about who is going through a divorce for example?

HS: Yeah, that's such a good question. I remember when I was first starting to open up to a couple of friends, you know, I did that thing that a lot of us do for a long time where I put, you know, a really happy face on it. Or, it wasn’t a really happy face—I tried to make it look really happy. A false happy face on and everything and I wasn't talking to anybody about what I was struggling with.

HS:And then once I started I had a few friends who would sort of talk me out of what I was saying I was feeling or sort of try to make it seem not that bad. Well, like I'm sure what he meant was blah blah blah. And it took a friend of mine who was just really candid to say like, you know, this is bullshit, you know, you deserve better than this. And it's hard to know what your friend needs or wants to hear. I'm a big fan of asking really directly. Do you want me to listen right now or do you want me to try to coach you right now? That's like one of those management books things, but I think it's really good advice in a friendship, in any relationship really to let, to be clear about what the person wants. Do they just want a sounding board? Do they just want someone to listen and commiserate? Or do they want someone to offer them some advice and some real steps to take.

HS:So I liked, I liked doing that and conversations like, Hey, do you want, do you want me to just sit here and listen or do or do you want me to kind of coach. You tell me I'm happy to do the thing you need right now. I don't think that comes across as really like contrived or phony. Especially if you mean it. And then I would say the second thing is to not, not receive it like terrible news. I mean, if someone's presenting it to you as terrible news, like I'm devastated, my husband called off the marriage or I'm devastated this is happening, you know? I don't think it's OK to say like, that's not devastating. That's wonderful. But I think if you, if you haven't been given the very clear signal from your friend, that this is a terrible thing, don't assume it is. I mean, I wrote about this, but when I went to Chase the bank one day to get a cashier's check for a closing, I was selling the townhouse we lived on together.

HS:The nice little person handling the cashier's check said, oh, are you moving? And I said, yeah. And she said, you’re moving to the suburbs? And I said, no, I'm getting divorced. And she was like, oh, congratulations. And I was like, wow, I haven't had someone say congratulations to me before. And she was like, well, it usually means a better life is ahead. And I was like, oh my God, I loved that. Maybe other people wouldn't. But I loved it because a better life very much was ahead for me. And even if I didn't know it in that moment, it really helps to hear someone believe that and say that out loud to me. So I think to not spin it as like, wow, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. I'm so sorry for you to not have that kind of, you know, in the air is good, you know, to, to be able to say like, I think this, this could end up being really good for you.

HS:This is probably going to bring some peace into your life that you haven't had for a while or, or maybe this is a chance to feel like your life is a little bit more like authentic or a little bit more yours. I think a lot of, I think a lot of good can come from divorce. I mean that's kind of a controversial thing to say. I wouldn't like you go around trying to cause divorces, but I don't, I don't think they're universally, you know, a terrible, terrible thing for someone to go through. I think, I think it can be the beginning of a better life. Like that woman at Chase told me.

JAC: That’s, I actually spit out a little bit of water as you expressed that because it was so surprising, but the sentiment is really lovely. So I guess as as we wrap this up, is there anything that you've sort of learned over the years with Balancing Act that you could condense into a parting phrase?

HS: A parting phrase. I would say shut up and listen is that good? I think in almost every one of my relationships when I've learned to shut up and listen, the relationship has improved and I've improved and I've become a better person, a more understanding person, a more empathic person by listening to other people instead of kind of waiting my turn to talk and you know, that's what you want is to go through life, always getting you know, a little bit better at it.

JAC:That's wonderful. I'm so happy that I got the chance to chat with you and I'm excited to see what that book turns into and to continue reading your column. Thank you for joining me, Heidi Stevens.

HS: It was my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

CK:This podcast was produced by me, Cindy Kuzma, and it's another thing that's better with friends, so please share it with yours. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you get a chance to leave us a rating or review, we would really appreciate it. Special thanks to J. Mano for our theme music; to our guest this week, Heidi Stevens; and to TechNexus for the recording studio.