Rachel Haviland, PhD

03/20/2026

When a business becomes dependent on the owner, most people jump straight to documenting SOPs and building systems to relieve the pressure. But a step many business owners miss is asking a more strategic question first:

𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹?

Business owners often systemize work that should have been eliminated.

The real order is: 𝗘𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 → 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 → 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 → 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲

- If you don’t eliminate first, you delegate work that shouldn’t even be done.
- If you don’t simplify, you delegate too much complexity.
- And if you don’t systemize what’s left, you delegate work that can be done in an inconsistent way.

By following the sequence, you stop transferring your chaos to a team member and wondering why it didn't solve the issue...

06/04/2025

I thought my greatest adventure was launching my business. I was wrong.

Yes, starting my own business gave me freedom, joy, and purpose. But the real adventure? That was the moment I realized my gifts were valuable. I made an impact. That I didn’t need anyone else’s permission to change the world.

Sometimes, adventure is not outward but inward. It’s about breaking a pattern you’ve repeated for years. Every risk, every leap of faith, every transformation you personally experience...is a return to yourself.

Photo by me: Nature's Bridge, VA

05/07/2025

Are you planting seeds and waiting...or demanding harvests too early? When you trust slow growth - whether it's a business, career, or a newsletter - you know when to act and when to wait with wisdom.

Markets cycle... Conditions change.

I encourage you to be a lifelong student of life’s rhythms. Some business owners burn out trying to sprint through what is meant to be a season of deep listening.

Listen to your readers. Listen to your clients. Listen to yourself.
What's required right now is patience.

Patience isn’t passive but rather a radical alignment with your long-game strategy. Only then can resilience become your superpower.

02/19/2025

Find a quiet corner to stop and think. Clarity emerges when you stay grounded in your internal vision, rather than being swayed by fleeting trends or external pressures.

02/17/2025

Building a business on your terms doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself. You can be successful and still:

⚛️ Say no to clients, projects, or opportunities that don’t align
⚛️ Prioritize your vision, energy, and well-being
⚛️ Set strong boundaries with clients, team members, and even yourself
⚛️ Stop buying into industry norms and carve your own path
⚛️ Speak your truth with clarity and confidence
⚛️ Challenge outdated business models that don’t serve you
⚛️ Walk away from partnerships, offers, or environments that drain you
⚛️ Make mistakes and use them as stepping stones to growth
⚛️ Stand up for your value and charge accordingly
⚛️ Protect your time, space, mind and creative energy

Those who refuse to be bound by outdated rules build the most powerful businesses. Think about one way you can step into your unbound success today!

02/10/2025

🧘🏻‍♀️MINUTE MEDITATION: Pause. Breathe. Be.
Close your eyes. Inhale deeply through your nose, feeling your body expand with fresh energy. Exhale slowly, letting go of all tension.

For the next minute, simply be. No pressure. No rush. Just your breath, your presence, and this moment.

You are exactly where you need to be.

I took this photograph overlooking Lake Crescent in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, west of Port Angeles. It's one of my favorite spots to visit when I’m out west to just sit, breathe, and relish the view!

02/04/2025

Before I moved into marketing, I spent almost two decades in cancer research, searching for answers in the lab, hoping to make a difference. I’ve done 100s of experiments, analyzed the data, endured the struggles, and celebrated the breakthroughs made.

But most importantly, I’ve seen the people—the patients, the families, the warriors. Many of them family and friends, even clients…some who survived and some who we remember dearly.

Now, outside the lab, my mission has shifted, but the heart of it remains the same: making an impact. I continue to work daily with those on the frontlines of prevention and early detection, those whose priority is health and wellness for us all.

Today, I honor the researchers, and the health practitioners, the caregivers, and the fighters who refuse to give up.

Cancer touches us all. Let’s keep pushing for progress. 💜

01/25/2025

How do you build a business you love…without burning down what you have? As Socrates said:

"The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new."

After 10 years in business, I was feeling trapped. For the past 5 years, I’ve been building a business I love by focusing on what I want to create rather than fighting against what isn’t working.

Instead of tearing everything down:

◈ I identified the parts of my business that aligned with my vision and amplified them.

◈ I chose to let go of the elements that were no longer in alignment.

◈ I shifted my energy to designing systems, offers, and workflows that support the life I wanted.

Evolution was the key, not destruction - when you build the new intentionally, so that the old naturally fades away, it makes space for something better.

12/31/2024

The end of the year can be exhausting for entrepreneurs. Apart from the obvious last-minute pushes to meet goals and deadlines, no doubt there have been some challenging family events over the holidays. There’s always the dreaded question from family and friends:

"How's business going?"

It’s always a tough one to answer, isn’t it? Especially when the year hasn’t gone to plan.

Sometimes, I’ve smiled and given a short (vague) response. Other times, I’ve outright lied and said it’s going well (while feeling like a complete imposter inside).

And now you're not exactly excited about New Year's Eve...

"What if next year is just more of the same?"

Perhaps you've entirely avoided planning for next year...
Or you've done the planning but doubt it will make any difference.
Either way, entering a new year isn't as thrilling as everyone else seems to think.

I've been there. I get it.

Since starting my own business in 2009, I've had many a New Year strike midnight, hiding my tears of sadness and disguising them as tears of joy.
I've even crept away a few minutes before midnight to protect myself from the joy and celebration surrounding me.

If that sounds like you, please know you're not alone, and it's not your fault.
Thankfully, entrepreneurship is entering a new phase.

- Out with the hustle and grind
- Letting go of the overwhelm
- Healing the burnout

It's time to embrace a new way of doing business:
YOUR way.

Let's do it together. That's what UNBOUND is all about.

Designing a business you’ll never want to escape from.

Redefining your business to support your ideal lifestyle...rather than sucking the life out of you.

I invite you to join me so that no matter how you feel this new year, you will have more to celebrate this time next year.

08/05/2020

Couldn't have said it better!

"We act differently when we know we’re about to be on display.

Aim a camera at someone and they tense up. I guess we call it “taking” a picture for a reason. We feel defensive.

Social media multiplies this by counting “likes” (which doesn’t mean someone actually likes us) or “friends” (which doesn’t mean that someone is actually our friend.)

The irony is that the people we’re most likely to want to trust and engage with are the ones who don’t pose. They’re consistent, committed and clear, but they’re not faking it.

Figure out what you want to say, the change you seek to make, the story you want to tell–and then tell it. Wholeheartedly and with intent.

Posing is unnecessary." - Seth Godin

In March, Fred Wilson (a must read) posted an essay on companies that are either "we" or "they". You can find it here:  A VC: Apple Becomes a "They" Company. The …

06/04/2020

Wondering why all these Zoom appointments are making us soooooo tired? Here's the answer!