Ten Rock Stars Over Fifteen Team Members: Rethinking Growth for Wellness Businesses
Oct 27, 2026Your neighbor just opened a second location. Your caseload is full, so hiring seems like the obvious next step. And someone keeps asking when you're going to expand. If you've felt the pressure to grow without being sure you actually want to, this episode is for you.
In this episode of the Wellness Center Creators podcast, Kendall Hagensen and Anna Rudel explore what happens when growth stops being the goal of your company. As small business owners, Kendall says, we feel constant internal and external pressure to equate getting bigger with success, as if the two have to go hand in hand. Her own motivation has always been impact: how to bring integrative, multidisciplinary care to more communities. Anna offers a different picture of growth. At this point in her career, she says, she's going down and deep rather than up and out, and it's still growth. It's just not about adding another clinic or 25 more practitioners.
Kendall connects that to their clinical training. Psychotherapists and the providers in their companies treat root causes, so depth feels normal on the clinical side. On the business side, it's easy to look at your neighbor and think you should be growing too. One of her biggest lessons as a leader is learning when growth feels in alignment. She shares that she operated two locations for a few years and then, in the last year, brought the company back to one, which feels so in alignment. The lesson she keeps relearning: no matter how many layers of leadership you add, it comes back to the owner, who needs the capacity to run what they've created.
Anna goes off script to ask whether Kendall builds her company to sell it or pass it on. Kendall says that for the first five years she simply wanted the company to be what she'd envisioned. More recently she runs it like something she'd hand to her children, in the best possible shape, so that if something happened tomorrow, the team would know what to do and have everything they need. Anna feels the same. After a long run of organic growth, she's now tying everything up with a ribbon, documenting systems and knowledge so no one has to reinvent the wheel or watch things crumble on day one.
Kendall's main message is that bigger is not always better. So much growth can happen within one location or a small team by deepening systems, improving effectiveness and profitability, and building an absolute rock star team. She'd much rather have 10 rock stars than 15 people who can theoretically bring in more money but aren't in alignment with the company. The key question is what you're actually trying to get more of, and why. She and Anna see owners hiring just because they think they should, like therapists whose caseload fills up and who assume employees are the next step, even though it doesn't necessarily make their own experience easier.
The hosts also talk about seasons of expansion and seasons of depth, and how to tell which one you're in. Anna says much of it is visceral: you get excited by possibility, then do the work of asking whether it's aligned, whether you have the research and the energy, and you can't expand on a low tank of gas. Kendall admits she has told team members, “I love that idea, but I don't have the personal capacity right now,” and laughs that two years before opening her second location she said she never would.
They close with an invitation: if someone asked where your business is going in one year or five, how would you answer? Does the question make you uncomfortable, and why? Take time to revisit your vision, and look for the excitement, joy, and fire along the way.
And for information Bloom and Grow Monthly Mastermind Groups, go to: https://www.wellnesscentercreators.com/group-coaching
Sponsored by Jane App, Jane offers online booking, charting, scheduling, secure video and invoicing on one secure, beautifully designed system: https://jane.app/ Use code wellness1mo for a one-month grace period on your new Jane account.
About Anna Rudel
Anna Rudel, L. Ac is the owner and founder of Lokahi Acupuncture Clinic in San Jose California, founded in 2003. Anna is a master organizer and clinician, and as a Coach she specializes in working with Clinic Owners in the state of California, and Acupuncturists and Acupuncture Clinic Owners, or groups wanting to add Acupuncture worldwide, as well as teams that need support with employee retention and satisfaction. Born in the UK, Anna has traveled extensively in Asia and now has a thriving multi-practitioner clinic in the US!
Anna's Website and Links
- Website: https://lokahiacupuncture.com/
- Learn Group Coaching: https://www.wellnesscentercreators.com/group-coaching
- For info about Individual Coaching: https://www.wellnesscentercreators.com/individual-coaching
About Kendall Hagensen
Kendall is a Somatic Mental Health Therapist, Multidisciplinary Clinic Owner and Business Coach. She specializes in, and is passionate about, working with healthcare professionals to create the businesses of their dreams. Big goals always have a psychological component beneath the surface, so Kendall uses her background in Somatic Psychotherapy and EMDR Therapy mixed with Business Coaching tools to help clients develop a healthy relationship with their business and their strength as a leader.
As someone who lives with a chronic illness herself, Kendall feels that health happens best within community, which is why she takes a holistic, integrative, and collaborative wellness approach to her personal and professional life.
Kendall’s Web/Social Links