HDS

You don’t have to choose between your career and your humanity.

Hi! I’m Hannah DeLisle-Stall

Quality & Operations leader. Mom of two. I write about ambition, identity, and building a career that fits real life.

Essays About Hannah

What You’ll Find Here

Working Motherhood

Mental load, ambition, and real life

Life & Identity

Pregnancy, fertility, womanhood and the stories we don’t tell at work

Career & Leadership

Boundaries, systems and modern leadership

Who I am

I’m an engineer by training, a systems thinker by instinct, and a leader who believes the best work happens when rigor and humanity coexist.

I’ve spent more than 15 years leading quality, operations, and program excellence work in highly regulated manufacturing environments, including aerospace, defense, and medical device. I’m known for building management systems that actually work in real life — structured but human, disciplined but adaptable.

I live in a rural town in Upstate New York with my husband and our two boys. I live and operate in a place where leadership, motherhood, community, and creativity intersect. This site is a home for all of those threads. Through essays and reflections, I write about building things — organizations, careers, families, and identities — especially in seasons when the blueprint isn’t obvious.

Read more about me

Essay Archives

  • Unpopular Opinion: Thank You For Inviting Me To Your Kid-Free Wedding

    Picture this: You’ve just received a wedding invitation from your friend, cousin, or coworker, and you’re excited to celebrate their big day with them. But then you notice a small note at the bottom of the invitation: “We respectfully request no children at the ceremony or reception.” You might feel a pang of disappointment, frustration,…

  • Why Is It So Hard to Say No?

    “Bingo, sometimes does your outside voice say yes when your inside voice really means no?” — Chilli Heeler, “Bluey,” Season 2, Episode 1 Even my favorite cartoon (dog) mom knows it’s hard to say no. Like many of us, I say yes to way too many things. I want to help, I want to contribute,…

  • I Tracked How I Spent My Time for A Week – Here’s What I Learned

    After yet another late Friday night at my computer, frantically trying to finish everything I put off all week, I asked myself (yet again), “Where did the time go this week?” Even after giving my calendar a once over, I still had no idea. But then I realized that perhaps I could determine the answer…

  • Moms, You Are Allowed To Have First-World Problems

    Mama, I know you have a lot on your plate. You’re juggling the demands of parenting, work, household chores, and personal care. You have to deal with tantrums, spills, messes, and meltdowns. You have to make decisions, solve problems, and plan ahead. You have to cope with stress, fatigue, and guilt. You feel every flake…

  • An Ode to My Diaper Bag

    New motherhood is scary. It is a time of uncertainty and needing to let go of control. A time of questioning and losing trust in yourself. It may sound silly, but one of the things I leaned on the most for confidence in these early stages was my diaper bag. It was a gift to…

  • How Breaking A Single Habit Helped My Mental Health

    As moms, we’re often experts at putting our own well-being last, which means our mental health tends to hang out on the back burner while we work to manage the rest of our lives. Between the isolation and worry of the pandemic, virtual schooling, work challenges, and more heart-wrenching news stories than one can count,…

Leadership, motherhood, and career — from inside a real working life.