FoundHer Rising with Christine Hakkola

Most founders are trying to avoid failure. Liza Tullidge, a serial entrepreneur who has exited four companies (and failed at plenty more), argues that's exactly backward. In this episode, Liza and Christine unpack why the founders who scale fastest are the ones who fail the most, why cold outreach feels so uncomfortable and what actually fixes it, and how separating your identity from your bus...

Most founders wait too long to hire, and it costs them more than they realize. In this episode of FoundHer Rising, Christine Hakkola sits down with Dr. Caroline Adelman, founder of Chicago Psychotherapy, to unpack how she grew a solo practice into a team of fifteen, and the decision-making habits that kept her from burning out along the way. If you're stuck doing everything yourself or saying yes...

Most new founders think their biggest problem is finding leads. Alexis Garrison, founder of AG Digital Group, found out the hard way that the network she already had was worth more than she realized. In this episode, she and Christine talk about the real challenges of year one, why narrowing your services is what makes a business scalable, and why letting go of doing everything yourself is harder,...

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...

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 lea...

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...

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 executiv...

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...

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,...

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 incre...

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 tak...

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....

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 strategie...

You're great at what you do. The work brought clients. The clients brought referrals. You built something real. Then growth slowed, the warm network thinned out, and the same fear started showing up under every decision: more clients means more hours, and there aren't more hours. This week, Shenelle B., founder of B.L.A.Z.E Careers, walks through how she scaled her HR consulting practice p...

You're booking sessions, helping clients, and still working evenings and weekends to make it sustainable. The problem isn't your skill. It's the pricing model and the marketing strategy you inherited from people who don't understand service work. In this video, therapist and coach Jemima Blazdell shares what 15 years of building a heart-centered practice has taught her about sustainability, the tr...

Most heart-centered founders hit a wall around the full-roster mark. The business that felt aligned starts feeling like a ceiling. In this episode, Jordana Bergman, founder of Eden Wellness Psychotherapy and former Bay Street litigator, shares the exact shifts that took her from full solo practice to a scalable boutique group clinic without losing the integrity of the work or burning out in the pr...

Susan Henriques spent 17 years in the school board system before she made her first move toward private practice. Four years later, she runs a group psychology practice with three associates and two mornings a week just for herself. This isn't a story about taking a big leap. It's about building something that lasts by moving at exactly the right pace. In this episode of FoundHer Rising, C...

Two LCSWs Left the Hospital. Then They Built What the Mental Health System Was Missing. Jodi Kapes and Valerie Lighthall spent years inside hospital behavioral health. After 14+ years in the system, they walked out and built Aligned Clinical LCSW Consulting, a practice delivering clinical debriefings, mental health support, and risk management consulting directly to organizations and communities....

Building a group counseling practice takes more than clinical skill. It takes systems, delegation, and the courage to market a brand instead of just yourself. Melissa Manning, founder and clinical director of M&M Counseling, built a fully trauma-informed group practice in Ontario after nearly two decades in leadership roles across social services. In this episode of FoundHer Rising, she walks...

Most business coaches will tell you to fix your funnel, adjust your offer, or refine your messaging. What they won't tell you is that none of it holds if the belief underneath is broken. Agita Bergmane, transformation and energy leadership coach, moved from Latvia to the United States, built a career, became a stay-at-home mom, and eventually reached a point where her external life looked successf...

She built a 40-person digital agency, hit rock bottom at 37, lost 80 pounds, and rebuilt her entire life. Terry Tateossian joins Christine Hakkola to talk about what it actually costs to build success the wrong way and what it looks like to build it right. The business was working. The body wasn't. This conversation goes deep on burnout, misalignment, the pendulum problem in business and healt...

You changed jobs. You changed business models. And burnout showed up again anyway. That is not a strategy problem. That is an identity problem, and most high-achieving women never see it coming. In this episode, Christine Hakkola sits down with coherence coach and neuroscience guide Carly Craver to explore the real root of burnout, why fear and intuition are not the same thing, and why building a...

In this episode of FoundHer Rising, Christine Hakkola speaks with Christine Cunningham about her journey in building a perinatal mental health practice. They discuss the importance of finding a niche, the challenges and benefits of diversifying income streams, and the balance between passion and business growth. Christine shares her personal experiences, insights on marketing, and the significance...

In this episode of FoundHer Rising, host Christine Hakkola interviews Terri Swanson, an HR consultant and owner of Swanson Consulting and Associates. Terri shares her journey from setting a goal to become an entrepreneur to successfully launching her consulting business. She discusses the importance of goal setting, building a support network, and overcoming fears. Terri emphasizes the need for ad...

In this episode of FoundHer Rising, Christine Hakkola interviews Dr. Rana Pishva, a clinical psychologist and founder of Sorted Mind. They discuss the journey of diversifying services in the wellness industry, the importance of adaptability, and the challenges of business growth. Dr. Pishva shares her insights on overcoming the fear of failure, the significance of finding a niche, and the future v...