“You’re either going to slow down on your own or your body is going to slow you down.”
Dr. Courtney Williams says this often. She says it to therapy clients, to coaching clients, to Black professional women in their 30s and 40s who are running organizations, leading teams, and quietly burning out inside the success they worked so hard to build.
She says it because she had to learn it herself before she could teach it to anyone else.
When the Body Wins
Courtney had been running Willed by Wellness for three years when she cried in a staff meeting in front of her own employees. She was the founder, the licensed psychologist, the person other people came to when they were at the edge.
“That for me was a big moment of vulnerability, of capacity,” she said. “From that moment, I knew. I had to take some things off of my plate.”
She started delegating. Started being more discerning about what she said yes to. Started treating her own business the way she’d been telling clients to treat their lives.
It wasn’t the first time the work had cost her something. Before she went full-time with Willed by Wellness, she spent years inside institutional psychology — watching colleagues leave, absorbing microaggressions, watching leadership become “more and more powerful and less and less accountable.” Her mental health, she said, “was on the line.” She made the decision to leave in 2024. By then, she’d already been running her practice on the side for three years, building something solid enough to step into.
What She Built
Willed by Wellness launched as an LLC in 2021. Courtney brought in her first revenue in February 2022 — private pay, weekends only, part-time. Today she carries 25 therapy clients a week and serves clients across 31-plus states through telehealth.
The practice has three arms: clinical services, coaching, and consulting. Through coaching, she runs Rooted and Restored — a program for Black professional women in leadership, ages 28 to 55, who are determined to shift out of urgent hustle culture and into something that actually lasts. A sliding scale brings services to clients paying as little as $10.
She is, in other words, not someone who talks about burnout from the outside.
The Standard She Holds Herself To
Courtney frames her conviction in clinical terms. As a licensed therapist, she said, running on fumes isn’t just a wellness problem — it’s a legal and ethical one.
“I can’t by law be running off fumes when I have someone’s life in my hands.”
She applies that same standard to everything she puts her name on. A coaching client, a workshop, a training. “That is my reputation on the line,” she said. “And if I am continuously self-sacrificing or moving from depletion, I’m not going to give you 100%.”
Her grandmother’s saying lives in her work the way most founders’ early lessons do — not as a slogan, but as an operating principle. Don’t rush, slow down, you’ll get there faster.
Why She’s Coming to the EC
On February 26th, Courtney is bringing a 90-minute session to the Nashville Entrepreneur Center: Elevate Your Wellness: Mental Health as a Leadership Skill.
She’s coming as an outside expert and she’s coming as an EC member — a founder who has carried the same weight her attendees are walking in with. The slow revenue month that makes you wonder if you made a mistake. The meeting where you fall apart in front of your team. The calendar with no white space and the voice that says keep going anyway.
The session isn’t a checklist. It’s a reframe — what does sustainable success actually require, not just in your business, but in you? How do your mental health, your emotional regulation, and the stories you tell yourself shape how you lead?
“We’re going to meet you where you are,” she said. “But you’re not going to stay where you are after working with us.”
The Thing Founders Don’t Want to Hear
If you walk in on February 26th still telling yourself you’ll rest once things slow down, she already knows what that sounds like. Her grandmother would have something to say about it.
So will your body.
Register for Elevate Your Wellness: Mental Health as a Leadership Skill
February 26, 2026 | 10 AM–11:30 AM
Nashville Entrepreneur Center, 41 Peabody St., Nashville, TN 37210
https://members.ec.co/events/1415653877/elevate-your-wellness-mental-health-as-a-leadership-skill
Visit Willed by Wellness
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