We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Filer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Katie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I was raised to follow a path—a clear, well-paved blueprint for how to become a functioning adult in the world. My parents (who split when I was five) made it clear: get good grades in high school, get into an esteemed undergraduate program, go on to get your master’s degree, and land a great job at a well-known company. As the oldest of five, it was my job to execute each step with excellence, to model success by staying the course.

So I did. Three years of postgraduate education, a cross-country move from New England to Florida, and $200,000 of debt later, I had done exactly what was expected of me and found a great paying job as a Speech Language Pathologist.

But that carefully followed path? It’s now irrelevant to the success story I’m living.

This isn’t a story about regret or resentment. I don’t regret the education, the job, or even the debt—I truly believe everything happens for a reason. But after earning my master’s in Speech-Language Pathology and landing a job in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a large hospital system—complete with job security and consistent paychecks—I made the boldest move of my life: I let my license expire and my national certification lapse.

Why walk away from the path I spent years pursuing? Why abandon the credentials I’d worked so hard for?

Purpose.

I’m not here to work for a company that limits growth or buries passion under red tape. I’m not here to stay small in a system that rewards staying silent and staying put. I’m not here to give my heart and energy to a profession that didn’t allow me to do the kind of work I know I’m meant to do.

So I made the calls—to my mom, to my dad—and told them I was quitting speech pathology to become a health and wellness coach. Their response? “That’s great, honey, but keep your certifications up to date just in case. You can always fall back on your SLP license.”

Two months later I let my certifications expire and license lapse because I didn’t pay the annual four hundred something dollar fee. I let it all go.

Now? I’m making more money than I ever could as an SLP. More importantly, I’m changing lives before they ever need the healthcare system. I teach women how to prioritize their mental and physical wellness so they can feel energized, confident, and connected. I watch them reclaim their voices and expand into spaces they were once taught to shrink themselves out of.

The risk I took wasn’t just leaving a job—it was betting on a version of myself I hadn’t fully met yet. That path and blueprint taught me so much about myself, but leaning into my purpose gave me the courage to jump.

Katie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a functional health coach helping moms who want to increase their confidence and take up space, through nutrition education and movement implementation. My wife and I primarily focus our work on the LGTBQ community in order to help them decrease anxiety and increase self-confidence. We pride ourselves on our 1:1 customized approach to health and wellness. Anyone can go online and find a program that they know would help them reach their health goals, but what we do is teach you HOW to implement habit change and lifestyle shifts to achieve that lasting success with your goals.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I can’t care about my clients’ success more than they do.
In my industry, health and wellness, it’s easy to fall into the trap of spending too much energy on a client who doesn’t share the same level of passion for a specific goal. I could talk about how important happy clients are for retention or word of mouth or even transformation testimonials. But the truth is, it’s the heart energy that drains me most—caring so deeply for someone who hasn’t yet decided to care for themselves. I’ve learned that my job isn’t to carry their goals for them, it’s to walk beside them as they learn how to carry those goals with intention and integrity. My mission is to help women see their patterns, challenge their excuses, and reclaim their power. But I can only meet them halfway. The rest has to come from within them.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

This is a fun and simple one: on Instagram.
My wife is my business partner and we met on Instagram in 2017 when I slid into her DM’s (direct messages), and then even double messaged to get her attention. She was living in Toronto Canada while I was finishing graduate school in Ft Lauderdale Florida (yes, living in different countries). Once we were legally married she started our health coaching company, and a few years in I decided to coach with her full time. We have created a life where we get to impact the LGBTQ community through health, and travel the world while doing it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @_KatieFiler
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/16Pi6ztgp5/?mibextid=oMANbw
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jaim91