Your business didn’t fail.
It outgrew the way it was built.
FoundHer Rising is for women founders in wellness, coaching, and consulting who’ve built successful service-based businesses, and are now feeling the weight of growth that depends too much on them.
You’ve done the right things.
You’ve built demand, filled your calendar, and proven your expertise.
But instead of ease, growth brought more pressure, complexity, and responsibility.
This isn’t a podcast for beginners, hustle culture, or quick fixes.
It’s a space for honest conversations about what scaling actually requires: leadership shifts, identity changes, and building a business that can grow without burning you out.
Hosted by Christine Hakkola, this show helps experienced, heart-centered founders think differently about their businesses so decisions get clearer and growth becomes more intentional.
If this stage feels familiar, you’re in the right place.
Learn more at hakkolahorizons.com.
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How to Delegate When You Are the Face of Your Business with Jodi Rouah | FoundHer Rising S01 E37
Episode 37
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 32:41
You hired someone good and your clients still want you. That's the wall most service-based founders hit, and it's not a hiring problem. It's a structure problem. If the business is built around one person, growth stops at that person's calendar.
Jodi Rouah built Counselling & Co. from a solo caseload into a hybrid team of roughly a dozen clinicians in Oakville, Ontario. In this conversation with Christine Hakkola, she walks through the specific shift that made it possible: removing herself from the client conversation entirely, and building a practice clients could choose without her in it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉🏻Referral trust transfers when you step back. Client trust usually doesn't, and those require two different fixes.
👉🏻Onboarding is not paperwork. Jodi's process starts two months before a clinician's first day and is where the culture actually gets installed.
👉🏻Letting go of control is not blind faith. The move is removing yourself from the execution while keeping your finger on the pulse.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome to FoundHer Rising
05:24 The first contractor who asked to be hired
10:40 Why clients wouldn't book with anyone else
15:40 Onboarding as the system that protects culture
22:09 Slow to hire and why the front end matters most
If you're the bottleneck in your own business right now, tell us in the comments what you've tried handing off, and what happened. Subscribe for new conversations with women scaling service-based businesses.
How To Lead a Small Team Without Losing the Human Side with Yael Eiserike | FoundHer Rising S01 E36
Episode 36
Tuesday, September 1, 2026 • Duration 36:10
Most advice about growing a service business assumes bigger is the goal. But what happens when you've built something good, you have a small team, and you realize that going massive would break the exact thing that makes the work worth doing?
Yael Eiserike left a career in law to become a therapist, then built a private practice serving attorneys and high-achieving professionals. Today she leads a small team and is deliberate about keeping it that way. In this conversation she and Christine Hakkola get into the real mechanics of that choice: when to hire, how to decide, which clients to turn down, and how to keep the human part of leadership intact once you're no longer working alone.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉🏻 You do not need to become an expert in every part of your business. Hiring specialists early costs less than the hours you burn learning what they already know.
👉🏻 The most useful hiring filter is trust, not credentials. If someone makes you feel foolish for asking a question, you will stop asking, and the questions you stop asking become the problems you discover too late.
👉🏻 Boundaries are not the opposite of being humane. Clearly communicated limits are what make warmth reliable for the people who work with you.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Introduction
5:20 — The Real Reason She Left a Job She Liked
10:33 — Why Working Inside Someone Else's Practice Came First
16:16 — Hire Experts Instead of Becoming One
21:27 — Building Around a Niche You Actually Come From
26:31 — Two Team Members Two Completely Different Needs
31:41 — Why Boundaries Are Not the Opposite of Humane
How to Market a Group Practice When Clients Only Want You | FoundHer Rising S01 E35
Episode 35
Tuesday, August 18, 2026 • Duration 32:24
You filled your caseload, hired an associate, and discovered the hard part. Clients still only want to see you. The reputation that built your practice was personal, and personal reputation doesn't transfer to a new hire on request.
Rebecca Gerlach built Being Human Group after filling her solo therapy caseload in four months. A year in, she rebuilt her entire website to move her associates to the top of the page and herself to the bottom. In this conversation she walks through what actually grew the practice, the hire that finally bought her time back, and why she made a deliberate decision to stop growing at a certain size.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉🏻 Marketing individual associates creates five or six small businesses instead of one. Rebranding around the practice means every future hire inherits the reputation on day one.
👉🏻 Systems and automation redistribute your workload. Hiring is what actually removes it. A single clinical supervisor hire was what let Rebecca step out of the day to day after years of not being able to.
👉🏻 Refusing poor-fit clients and referring them elsewhere is what keeps a practice full, not what empties it. Trust travels further than availability.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 — Welcome and how Rebecca got started
05:03 — When clients only want to see you
10:24 — The network most practice owners never build
15:32 — Saying no to the wrong fit
20:48 — The hire that bought her time back
26:16 — Why she chose not to get bigger
31:13 — Advice for founders in the middle of it
Why 70% of Leaders Struggle With Imposter Syndrome with Lin Coughlin | FoundHer Rising S01 E34
Episode 33
Tuesday, August 4, 2026 • Duration 31:59
Eighty percent of her clients have come through referrals for twenty years. Now she is building a group program, and the network that built the practice cannot fill it.
Lin Coughlin spent 25 years in corporate America, including 15 years in C-suite operating roles leading integrations, turnarounds, and the spin-off of four divisions of a $20 billion conglomerate. She left to build her own executive coaching practice and stood it up in months using her warm network alone.
Twenty years later she is launching her first group offering, and running straight into the ceiling that almost every service based founder eventually hits. In this conversation with Christine Hakkola, Lin is candid about what referrals can and cannot do, why she now screens every client for imposter syndrome, and the slow visibility channel that took years to compound.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉🏻 A referral engine scales with your relationships, not with your offer. It is the right mechanism for high touch one on one work and the wrong one for filling a cohort, and the gap only becomes visible once you launch something new.
👉🏻 Imposter syndrome affects roughly 70% of leaders, and in Lin's experience men and women at similar rates. She stopped waiting for clients to raise it and built it into her discovery process as a default screening question.
👉🏻 Consistent public posting, not pitching, is what produced her media coverage. Leadership publications found her online and approached her, and those features then became the raw material for the next round of content.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 — Welcome and who Lin actually serves
06:15 — Standing up the business and the first six clients
12:18 — The Strengths Report Card and where imposter syndrome shows up
How to Delegate Outside Your Zone of Genius with Alison Campbell | FoundHer Rising S01 E33
Episode 33
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 • Duration 35:10
Alison Campbell built a 20-year corporate career, then a stress-driven medical crisis landed her in the emergency room and changed everything. Now she runs Unburnt, helping leaders and teams prevent burnout. In this episode she and Christine Hakkola get honest about the real mechanics of scaling a service business without breaking yourself in the process, from the weekly reset that beats any rigid routine to the moment you finally have to close a few doors.
If you're growing a business and quietly cutting your own recovery to keep up, this conversation is the wake-up call before the wall.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉🏻 A weekly reset beats a perfect routine. When the week falls apart, schedule recovery back into the next two instead of writing it off.
👉🏻 Keeping every offer open feels safe, but holding the doors open too long is what stalls a service business. Focus is what opens new growth.
👉🏻 Pushing through chronic stress puts you in survival mode, which quietly degrades your decisions and your work long before you hit a wall.
The Boundary Math Behind Scaling an 8-Figure Business with Maddie Niebauer | FoundHer Rising S01 E32
Episode 32
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 • Duration 40:12
She built an eight figure business by refusing to be the one who does the work. Most founders stay stuck because clients only want them, and saying no feels impossible. Maddie Niebauer made the opposite call early. She stopped being the service provider, became a matchmaker, and built VChief into a fractional chief of staff firm that scaled past her. In this episode she breaks down the delegation, systems, and boundaries that made it sustainable, and what it actually looks like to grow a business in under 20 hours a week.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
👉🏻 Why handing off the work clients want from you is the move that lets the business grow past you
👉🏻 How to tell when a problem needs a better system instead of another hire
👉🏻 The boundary math behind building at scale without living inside the business
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 — How a side gig became VChief
5:26 — Why she stopped taking clients herself
10:38 — What to delegate first when money is tight
16:13 — What hitting your first million really feels like
Why Female Founders Can't Scale Past Six Figures with Natasha Golinsky | FoundHer Rising S01 E31
Episode 31
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 • Duration 37:36
In this episode, Natasha Golinsky shares how a stage two breast cancer diagnosis forced her to build the team she'd been avoiding for a decade. The result was a business that runs without her, eight months ahead of any schedule she'd ever set for herself. The cost was confronting why she'd waited so long. If you've been kicking the can on your first real hire, your next price increase, or the content you keep deleting before you publish, this conversation is the diagnostic.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
👉🏻 Why "building a team" is a teachable skill set, not a personality trait, and why most founders never learn it
👉🏻 How the invisible cage of nervous-system patterns blocks execution that strategy alone cannot fix
👉🏻 The difference between symptom management and root-cause work, and when to switch from one to the other
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 — The brand built on every founder's worst Friday
04:30 — Anger equals danger and how it caged a career
10:15 — The cancer diagnosis that forced the first real hire
16:20 — What female founders get wrong about hiring
22:50 — Building teams is a skill, not a magic recipe
From Corporate Layoff to CEO After 34 Years with Adyna K. Pressley | FoundHer Rising S01 E30
Episode 30
Tuesday, June 9, 2026 • Duration 34:02
After 34 years in corporate, Adyna K. Pressley got laid off and felt relief. What followed was a pivot most founders dream about and quietly fear. She built AKP Innovations from a girls' trip conversation, landed a feature on Oprah, and ran straight into the one obstacle that almost no founder anticipates. Not marketing. Not sales. Help. This conversation gets honest about what it actually takes to stop being the bottleneck in your own business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
👉🏻 Why your strongest professional instinct can become the ceiling on your business
👉🏻 The specific standard to hold when hiring your first real support
👉🏻 The growth edge most founders can't name out loud, and why naming it is half the work
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 — Welcome to FoundHer Rising
05:30 — The Nashville lunch that became a business
11:00 — Writing the book before building the business
Hidden Calendar Rule Costing Founders Their Best Clients with Jess Britt | FoundHer Rising S01 E29
Episode 28
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 • Duration 27:47
Most service founders are stuck working harder without growing. The real problem isn't effort. It's the trade-offs they're not seeing. In this episode, Jess Britt shares how she built her consulting business by saying no to the wrong opportunities, building systems before she had clients, and treating sales like service. The outcome is a business designed to last, not just to survive.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
👉🏻 Every yes is a no to something else, and naming the trade-off is what makes the choice strategic
👉🏻 Sales feels different when you stop pitching and start asking how you can actually help
👉🏻 The systems you build before you have clients are the ones that survive when you do
Free Guide: From 10K to 40K Months. If you've hit consistent revenue but working harder isn't creating more growth, this guide breaks down what actually has to change. https://go.hakkolahorizons.com/opt-in-10kto40k-months-guide
Why Your Business Needs Boundaries to Scale with Sara Coyle | FoundHer Rising S01 E28
Episode 28
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 • Duration 31:03
Sara Coyle built a steady one-on-one therapy practice, brought on contractors, and ran straight into a problem most service founders don't see coming. The wait list didn't transfer. The growth stalled. The marketing playbook that built the business stopped working.
In this video, Sara shares what she's learning in real time about scaling Connected Roots Therapy from solo to team, why the strategies that built her practice aren't the strategies that grow it, and the moves that are actually moving the needle.
If you're scaling a service business and your hires aren't filling up the way you expected, this conversation is the diagnosis you need.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
👉🏻 The trust you built as a solo provider doesn't auto-transfer to your team. Your marketing job fundamentally changes when you bring on contractors.
👉🏻 Social media is rarely the growth lever for service businesses under multi-six-figures. Networking, sponsorships, and showing up in person are what actually convert.
👉🏻 Hire before you feel ready. Most founders wait until they're drowning, and that's the moment growth stalls. Buying back your time is what creates the room to grow.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 — Sara's story and the 2019 turning point
05:50 — Why private practice gave her freedom and what she traded for it
12:17 — Building Connected Roots and the move from solo to group practice
19:30 — What actually works in service business marketing right now
26:30 — Hire before you're ready and stop being the bottleneck
Free Guide: From 10K to 40K Months. If you've hit consistent revenue but working harder isn't creating more growth, this guide breaks down what actually has to change. https://go.hakkolahorizons.com/opt-in-10kto40k-months-guide
If this episode resonated, follow the show, share it with another founder, and leave a quick review. It helps more women find these conversations.
Free Guide: From 10K to 40K Months. If you've hit consistent revenue but working harder isn't creating more growth, this guide breaks down what actually has to change. https://go.hakkolahorizons.com/opt-in-10kto40k-months-guide
If this conversation resonated, follow the show, share it with another founder, and leave a quick review. It helps more women find these conversations.
Free Guide: From 10K to 40K Months. If you've hit consistent revenue but working harder isn't creating more growth, this guide breaks down what actually has to change. https://go.hakkolahorizons.com/opt-in-10kto40k-months-guide
If this episode hit, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share it with one founder who needs to hear it.
Free Guide: From 10K to 40K Months. If you've hit consistent revenue but working harder isn't creating more growth, this guide breaks down what actually has to change. https://go.hakkolahorizons.com/opt-in-10kto40k-months-guide
If this episode hit, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share it with one founder who needs to hear it.
If this episode shifted how you think about saying yes, share it with one founder who needs to hear it. Then come back and tell us in a review which insight landed hardest.
Free Guide: From 10K to 40K Months. If you've hit consistent revenue but working harder isn't creating more growth, this guide breaks down what actually has to change. https://go.hakkolahorizons.com/opt-in-10kto40k-months-guide
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