"Follow Your Gut" One Life Lesson – Exclusive Interview With Katie Pancione

Katie Pancione spent well over a decade in corporate America before concluding that she wanted something more personally meaningful in life, helping others. While still working her high-powered executive position, she took her undergraduate degree in psychology and continued her education by receiving a Master of Arts in Counseling. At this point she departed her corporate career and started her own counseling practice, NOVA Mental Health Counseling. Katie focuses on helping others via tele-health work through grief, loss, anxiety, and the many overwhelming life transitions that many individuals face across their life span.

Katie Pancione, Clinical Mental Health Counselor

My story began when I landed a job at what at the time was a $25M revenue technology company in Northern Virginia. In working with the same company for well over a decade, I helped contribute to creating and innovating the now $600M+ companies' highest-earning revenue departments and programs. After spending so much time and energy on my corporate career, I was left with a high income and an executive title that many people dream about achieving. Still, I knew I needed to do something to help others more personally. I decided to go back to school to become a licensed professional counselor and switch my career from focusing on corporate tech sales to personal mental health.

I do not regret the time spent in my last career. I was given fantastic opportunities, which helped me become a well-informed counselor today. I have realized that my passion for helping others with their own insight and communication was something I have been missing when it comes to what I do for a living.

This career change also helped with my personal life. During my time in corporate America, I spent 50-60 hours working each week and often traveled overnight for business. After getting married in 2018, and as a newlywed, I knew that my next milestone would be to have children. My current career did not create a sustainable lifestyle to be an involved mother and a dedicated corporate executive. I now work only a couple of days a week, giving me ample time to be home with my daughter.

It has always been my ultimate goal to be a parent. When I am not working out of my home office, I am with my daughter. It is a true blessing that I have found a career that I am not only passionate about but gives me the flexibility and freedom to be the parent I always hoped I could be.

What is your business name, and how do you help your clients?

I currently own and operate NOVA Mental Health Counseling. As of right now, this is a solo private practice that provides telehealth counseling services to individuals, couples, and families seeking clinical counseling. Each client is treated on an individual plan that caters to the issues that bring them in for counseling. Almost 100% of clients come in for one particular topic. About 30% of clients come for short-term therapeutic solutions to work through that specific problem or event they are struggling with. The other 70% stay in long-term counseling that spans many issues or moves to a slower cadence of sessions. Considering each person has specific needs, it is essential to cater to their individual problems, availability, and therapeutic goals.

What kind of audience do you target your business towards?

I work with adults, couples, and families. One key area of expertise at NOVA Mental Health Counseling is grief and loss. While many people hear the word grief and automatically assume it means death, grief and loss can span almost all aspects of life. More often than not, grief becomes a synonym for isolation and loneliness and leaves people feeling helpless. Maybe someone recently lost their job or retired, and they are struggling with the change in their daily routine. Grief can also be anticipatory such as a parent struggling with the idea that their child is moving out of the house to attend a university far away. Of course, there is the concept of death that many clients initially come to us with.

What are your current goals for your business?

As of right now, I do not have any immediate plans to change my business model. I enjoy having a solo private practice, which fits my personal lifestyle and schedule. However, I foresee growing my business in 5-10 years to include multiple therapists and services. I'd like to offer assistance to various populations and cater to a variety of therapeutic treatment types.

Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?

I know it is cliche, but those who feel the same understand why it is such a popular answer. My daughter is hands down my main inspiration to be my best self. Knowing my ultimate goal is to be a mother and have my career work around that, she is the reason for every business decision I make.

I want to create a space for myself to be a full-time mom and have a full-time career, but I also want to set a good example. Far too often, people find themselves feeling trapped. Trapped in their job, their living situations, their relationships, etc. I want to show her that she can live the life she chooses, and as her worldview changes, she is free to do the same. It takes a lot of guts to make significant career shifts to follow your personal passions, and it's important to me that she can see this by the example I set.

What is your work inspired by?

I realized that I wanted to move into mental health because of what I liked most about how I spent my time in my last career. Before I decided I needed to make a change, and after a challenging couple of days, I sat down to write out a list of what I loved about my job to find some motivation. When I started to put pen to paper, I immediately thought about my employees as individuals. Each has its own story, reasons to come into the office, and personal lives that need to be balanced with our daily work demands. In particular, I managed a veteran who was suffering from PTSD. When I thought about the one-on-one coaching as his manager, I realized I was prioritizing his mental health. This led me to realize that I felt the same towards all my employees and their employees. I was spending any available time hosting one-on-one meetings with as many people as possible simply to hear if they were happy. I realized that I cared more about everyone's personal feelings of success than any of the corporate key performance indicators I was supposed to hold them to.

If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?

I would make mental health services a federally regulated entity if I could. As a telehealth healthcare worker, I am confined to offering telehealthcare to those currently seated in the Commonwealth of Virginia at the time of services. It is heartbreaking to tell people you cannot help them because they are present in another jurisdiction. It competes with the ethical boundaries of always doing what is in the client's best interest.

What words of wisdom do you want to leave to our readers?

If I had to offer only one life lesson, it would be to follow your gut. Your brain and heart can give you so many reasons to make or not make the changes you may face, but your gut does not lie.

People are born with intuition, and when we learn to hone into that and listen to what we are being told, it is possible to 'have it all.' If you asked me 15 years ago about who I am today, I would honestly ask what book you are reading because I love a good fantasy/romance novel. I never thought I would have not 1 but 2 successful careers, find a man as wonderful as I did to marry and invest in a gorgeous home to start our family in. I have everything I ever dreamed of having, and I often find myself looking around in disbelief that this is all real. Following my intuition got me to who and where I am today.

Katie Pancione currently provides telehealth counseling services to individuals, couples, and families who live or work in Virginia and is available for complimentary consultations. Please visit HERE for more information.

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