Finding Logic in the Illogical

Rachel Stewart on resilience, reinvention, and the art of knowing when to change the plan without changing the purpose

By Ruby Cole-Ellis

The smartest person in the room is not always the one doing the most talking. Sometimes, she is the one listening, connecting the dots, and asking the question nobody else thought to ask.

Rachel Stewart has always been that person to me.

I remember meeting her nearly 15 years ago. We were both graduate students at the University of Calgary, assigned to work the same shift at the Students’ Union convenience store. We bonded almost immediately over good conversation, our shared interests, and the realization that our minds seemed to work in remarkably similar ways.

I remember coming home that day and telling my now-husband, Matt, that I had met one of the nicest, smartest people I had ever known. What I didn’t know was that I had just met my future best friend, confidante, and eventually, business partner.

If you know me, you know I tend to be the firecracker in the room. I’m the one who wants to jump in, figure it out as I go, and build the plane while we’re flying it. Rachel brings a grounding kind of calm. Where I see possibilities and want to move, she pauses to examine the pieces. Where I might leap before looking, she asks what we’re leaping toward.

Our differences have become one of my favourite things about us.

Over the years, we graduated, pursued our respective careers, collaborated on projects, and even worked together at another magazine, where I was editor-in-chief and Rachel was assistant editor. When that chapter ended, I felt we had only begun to discover how well we could work together but also a sense of “unfinished business”.

When I eventually pitched Rachel the idea of starting ROSE Magazine, I told her I would understand if she wasn’t ready. But I also knew I didn’t want to pursue it without her. I wanted her mind, her perspective, and her ability to take a sprawling idea and help us figure out what it would take to bring it to life.

Today, as I write about Rachel for the cover of our Fall 2026 issue, I find myself returning to that first impression. The qualities I admired in her then have only deepened. Beneath her thoughtful, analytical approach is a woman willing to grow, take risks, and reinvent herself. She simply has a particularly good way of figuring out what comes next.

The accidental evaluator

Rachel’s academic journey offers a glimpse into the curiosity that has always defined her. She completed a double major in German and History as an undergraduate, largely because she wanted to study abroad in Germany. She later earned a master’s degree in Religious Studies from University of Calgary.

Program evaluation wasn’t necessarily the career she had mapped out for herself. Like so many interesting careers, it found her through an unexpected door.

While working at the University of Calgary’s Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, Rachel became involved in research and professional development initiatives. She began asking questions that would become central to her work: What does success look like? How do we know whether something is worthwhile? And what evidence would help us make better decisions?

If research assistants were taking time away from other responsibilities to attend professional development sessions, for example, she wanted to understand what those sessions accomplished. That meant considering the needs of students and supervisors, designing activities, and gathering evidence to determine whether the work was useful.

She discovered that she loved the process. “It was a good blend of my interests in research and learning,” she explained to me. “I could do a rigorous investigation with a cool group of people and see how the findings helped the team learn and make decisions in real time.”

She began teaching herself the discipline, pursued professional development through the Canadian Evaluation Society, and eventually completed a Graduate Diploma in Evaluation through the University of Victoria in 2024. Today, her work brings together evaluation, research, facilitation, and project management. She helps teams understand what their initiatives are achieving, where assumptions may be falling short, and how evidence can inform their next decisions.

So, what exactly is program evaluation?

In simple terms, it is a structured way of understanding whether something is working, for whom, under what circumstances, and why. It moves us beyond asking whether we completed a task to considering whether that task made the difference we intended.

A workshop delivered or a report published is an output: something we produce or do. An outcome is the change that follows, such as new knowledge, improved skills, different behaviours, or stronger relationships. Impact is the broader, longer-term difference we hope to contribute to.Rachel’s work helps people connect those dots while recognizing that change rarely follows a perfectly straight line. People, resources, competing priorities, and unexpected circumstances all influence results. It requires technical skill, but also empathy, patience, and a willingness to question what you think you already know. That is where Rachel’s personality and profession meet.

THE EVALUATOR’S LENS

Outputs are what we do or produce. Outcomes are the changes that follow. Impact is the bigger, longer-term difference we hope to contribute to.

A logic model for life

One of Rachel’s most useful tools is a logic model. The name might sound like something you’d find in a boardroom beneath a spreadsheet and a very serious cup of coffee. In practice, the idea is surprisingly accessible. A logic model maps the relationship between the resources we have, the activities we undertake, and the results we hope to achieve. It makes the assumptions connecting each step visible.

In other words: if we do this, what do we expect to happen next? What makes us believe one thing will lead to another? “A logic model has two halves: your planned work and your intended results,” Rachel explained. “You read it as a chain of if/then statements.”

Imagine wanting to launch a business, change careers, or develop a new habit. Having a goal is a start, but you also need to consider your resources, the steps you plan to take, and what might prevent you from moving forward.

A logic model can reveal that the goal itself isn’t the problem. Perhaps the timeline is unrealistic, the resources are insufficient, or an assumption behind the plan simply isn’t true. “Any goal is a chain of hypotheses, and when something isn’t working, you can use a logic model to look for the link that broke,” Rachel told me.

Having spent years building businesses and coaching entrepreneurs, I know how easy it is to become so focused on reaching a destination that we forget to ask whether the road we chose still makes sense. Rachel has helped me appreciate the value of stepping back to examine what is happening between the vision and the result. Evaluation isn’t about criticizing ourselves for getting something wrong. It’s about learning from what the experience is telling us.

ROSE, in theory and in practice

When Rachel and I began building ROSE with our co-founder and creative director, Luci Morales, we brought different strengths to the table and shared a vision for a magazine celebrating millennial women, their stories, their businesses, and the many ways they define success. We also had the optimism of people who believed that if we worked hard enough, we could make all the pieces fit.

Our first issue taught us that building a publication is considerably more complicated than imagining one. We learned about timelines, partnerships, responsibilities, communication, and the sheer amount of work required to turn a creative vision into something readers could experience.

Our first issue was, in many ways, a pilot. By the time we began developing Issue 2, the question had changed. We already knew we could produce a magazine. Now we needed to understand what kind of magazine we wanted ROSE to become and what meaningful success would look like beyond releasing another issue.

Rachel helped us think about the difference between producing something and creating a lasting difference through it. She also helped us recognize that our original division of responsibilities didn’t necessarily reflect how our team worked best.

I had naturally assumed a leading role, as I often had in other ventures. But our strengths and circumstances were evolving. Rachel’s ability to coordinate information, manage projects, and keep the bigger picture in view made her a natural fit to take on more leadership. I could hold the vision without being at the forefront of every decision. Luci could focus on creative direction, design, and our digital presence. Rachel could help bring our moving parts together.

That shift required all three of us to reconsider some of our assumptions about how we thought things should work. It is one of the less glamorous sides of entrepreneurship: sometimes the most important growth happens when you realize that the way you started is not the way you need to continue.

A THEORY OF CHANGE

A logic model helps explain how an initiative is expected to work. A theory of change takes a wider view, exploring why the work matters and how it might contribute to a larger, long-term difference.

A logic model helps explain how an initiative is expected to work. A theory of change takes a wider view, exploring why the work matters and how it might contribute to a larger, long-term difference.

For ROSE, publishing an issue is an output. Our bigger ambition is to create meaningful opportunities for storytelling, knowledge-sharing, connection, and visibility for women.

When the plan changes

There is a particular vulnerability in evaluating something you love.

With ROSE, Rachel isn’t examining a project from a distance. She is evaluating something she helped create and cares deeply about. The work is personal, and the stakes feel different.

She understands that evidence and creativity need not compete. “I never want to shrink ROSE to something driven by metrics only,” she told me, “but I can’t imagine our creative process without information.” Not everything meaningful can be counted, and not everything that can be counted is necessarily meaningful. Knowing the difference matters.

As we worked on this Fall issue, our original cover feature had to be reconsidered when the person we had planned to feature stepped away. It was unexpected and meant making decisions about a project already well underway. We could have focused solely on getting the issue finished and preserving as much of the original plan as possible. Instead, we paused and considered what we had learned about the kind of publication we wanted to build. We wanted the people whose stories we shared to feel respected and safe throughout the process.

Rachel and I approached the situation from our own perspectives but arrived at the same conclusion: the plan needed to change. The activity had changed, but the values behind it had not. That is the heart of thoughtful evaluation. A plan is a starting point informed by what we know at the time, not a promise that circumstances will remain the same.

Sometimes, new information asks us to do something different. Sometimes, the most responsible choice is to let go of the outcome we originally imagined. It was during this process that the idea of Rachel as our cover girl began to feel less like a solution to an unexpected problem and more like an opportunity I had been overlooking.

I had watched Rachel grow more confident in her professional voice, step into leadership, and become more comfortable trusting her own strengths. She embodies the values we set out to celebrate with ROSE: Resilient, Original, Savvy, and Empowered. Rachel Stewart is a ROSE girl in every sense of the word: Resilient in the face of change, Original in the way she sees the world, Savvy enough to know that evidence and instinct can work together, and Empowered not because she controls every outcome, but because she knows she can choose how to respond.

Learning to live with what cannot be fixed

Some of the most important examples of Rachel’s resilience have nothing to do with her professional accomplishments.

In the fall of 2014, she was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease. Her case is unusually severe, and she has undergone several surgeries, including a corneal transplant, in an effort to stabilize her vision. Despite treatment, her vision has continued to change. Her everyday life has changed with it. She has adapted through larger print, text-to-speech, magnification tools, and the use of an identification cane to name a few.

In a personal reflection, Rachel wrote about the things she misses: reading paper books and magazines, wandering through libraries and bookstores, and looking at people and scenery. She also described the practical adaptations that have become part of her life, including accessible technology and the generosity of friends who offer her rides.

What struck me most was her honesty about the emotional side of vision loss.

She recalled an early conversation with a person who is fully blind. He compared her experience to that of someone who had lost a thumb speaking with someone who had lost a hand. The intention may have been to offer perspective, but Rachel was left feeling that her own grief was somehow not worthy of attention. She has since worked to practise self-compassion and recognize how much she has learned and adapted.

There is no neat conclusion to a story like this. No triumphant paragraph can undo the frustration of losing abilities you once took for granted, and no amount of logic can make every difficult feeling disappear.

When life changes in a way you never chose, you may find yourself grieving the future you imagined. You may need time to understand what has changed, what remains possible, and what support you need. Eventually, different questions begin to emerge. What can I do now? What tools might help? What matters most to me, and how can I continue to pursue it under different circumstances?

This isn’t about pretending that a difficult situation is a gift or insisting every setback has a hidden purpose. Sometimes, something is simply hard. It is about acknowledging reality without allowing it to be the only thing that defines the future. Rachel has reminded me that resilience isn’t necessarily about returning to the person you were before. Sometimes, it is about learning how to be yourself in a world that has changed.

A GENTLER QUESTION

Instead of asking, “Why can’t I do this the way I used to?” try asking, “What would help me do this now?”

A change in circumstances does not erase your abilities, ambitions, or worth. Sometimes, it simply asks you to find another way forward.

The courage to look at the evidence

Rachel doesn’t confuse being analytical with having all the answers. She knows logic models simplify complex initiatives, and that real life will always contain more than a model can capture. People are unpredictable and context matters. Sometimes, the most honest answer is that we don’t know yet.

That humility is important. Once we develop a theory about something, it can be easy to notice only the evidence that supports what we already believe. Rachel looks for information that challenges her assumptions, listens to different perspectives, and considers whether the evidence points in the same direction across multiple sources. She brings the same discipline to storytelling. When interviewing a contributor, she doesn’t want to arrive with the story already written in her mind. She wants to understand the person, hear what they are actually saying, and leave room for unexpected insights.

I love this about her because it offers a lesson well beyond evaluation. When a plan doesn’t work, our first instinct may be to blame ourselves. We might decide we failed, weren’t disciplined enough, or simply aren’t capable of achieving what we wanted. Rachel has admitted that when something goes wrong in her personal life, her first reaction can be to feel she has let someone down.

The challenge is learning to recognize that reaction without accepting it as the final verdict. “What changed?” is often a more useful question than “What’s wrong with me?”

The answers won’t always be comfortable, but they can help us move forward. Once we stop treating every unexpected result as a judgment of our worth, we create space to learn from it.

Your life is not a spreadsheet

I would never want anyone to conclude that the secret to a meaningful life is turning every decision into an exercise in analysis. There is a place for instinct, emotion, spontaneity, and simply experiencing things without immediately trying to explain them. Rachel’s work isn’t about making every part of life predictable. It is about understanding enough to make a thoughtful decision about what comes next.

That can begin with a few simple questions: What am I hoping will change? What am I doing to make that possible? What assumptions am I making? How will I know when I need to adjust my approach?

Then pause and look at what is actually happening.

Perhaps the goal still matters, but the strategy needs work… perhaps your definition of success has changed… or perhaps you are making progress in ways you never thought to measure.

Confidence, self-awareness, the ability to set boundaries, and the willingness to ask for help may never appear in a neat set of statistics. Reflection can be its own kind of evidence. Look back at an earlier version of yourself. What feels easier now? What would you not have attempted a year ago?

If you haven’t made the progress you hoped for, that is information, too. You can decide what to do with it without turning it into a reason to be unkind to yourself. The key is to remain curious.

A different kind of success

When I think about the girl I met during a university convenience-store all those years ago, I smile at how little I understood about the friendship and life that would grow from that ordinary day. I knew Rachel was smart and kind. I couldn’t have known how many different versions of ourselves we would meet along the way, or how much we would learn from building something together.

ROSE Magazine is still young. We are refining our vision, strengthening our processes, and learning how to grow without losing the values that inspired us to begin. Much of that work happens behind the scenes. It isn’t always glamorous, but it gives us something stronger to build upon.

I see Rachel bringing that same thoughtful commitment to the work ahead. Leadership, as she demonstrates it, isn’t about having the loudest voice or making every decision yourself. It is about helping people understand where they are going, what they need to get there, and how to make the best use of their strengths.

I am proud of her not simply because she is my best friend or exceptionally good at what she does, but because I have watched her become increasingly comfortable taking up space in her own way. For someone who spends so much time helping others articulate their visions, sharing her own story is a meaningful step.

Perhaps that is the beauty of evaluation.

It gives us permission to revisit the plan without abandoning the dream. It helps us recognize when a strategy needs to change or when we have been measuring the wrong thing all along.

We can hold our plans loosely and our values tightly. We can be proud of our progress without pretending the journey was perfect. And we can learn to see change not only as a disruption to the life we imagined, but as an invitation to understand the life we are actually living. You don’t have to have everything figured out to move forward. You simply have to be willing to look honestly at where you are, stay curious about what you are learning, and make the next decision with care.

After all these years, I am still learning from the way Rachel’s mind works. I am still grateful for the calm she brings to my firecracker tendencies. I am still convinced that some of the best things in life begin when we leave a little room for the unexpected.

BIO