Nothing to prove.
Plenty to show.
Katie O'Grady | Chronic Illness Storyteller, Speaker, Content Creator and Run Coach
I’ve spent most of my life trying not to look sick. Then I found out what happens when you stop hiding and start finding out what you’re actually capable of.
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I’m not interested in being an inspiration. I’m interested in what happens when you stop asking permission to believe something true about yourself. Identity is chosen, not assigned.
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Now I bring that to stages as a speaker, to brands that want to sound like themselves, and to the runners I coach.
I live with cystic fibrosis, but that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that I never once believed I was sick. I just spent years making sure no one else decided that for me. That protection is the whole story.
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Growing up, I was never trying to prove I wasn't sick. I just didn't want anyone to see me any differently than I saw myself. So I hid my treatments, sometimes even from friends and family, because the second CF became visible, I felt like I stopped being seen as normal.
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Running became the proof. Not proof that I'd overcome being sick. Proof of who I already knew I was. Identity doesn't just influence how we feel. It drives how we act.
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"I'm trying to get my full potential out of my body. If I don't try, then what was the point of the gift I was given?"
The first time I said any of this out loud on a stage was at the American Thoracic Society Conference, in front of a room of doctors. Running didn't just help me manage my CF. It gave me a freedom from it that nothing else had, and it only worked once I stopped trying to outrun my diagnosis.
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That's the talk I still give, for healthcare organizations, conferences, patient advocacy groups, and athletic communities who want their audience to walk out choosing who they're going to be, instead of accepting who they were told they'd be.
Mission Breathe Again Creative
Mission Breathe Again started with my own story. Now I help other brands tell theirs. Mission Breathe Again Creative is my storytelling content and marketing work for entrepreneurs, small and personal brands, and service-based businesses ready to sound like themselves.
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In the last 90 days, my Instagram reached 96,514 views, and views from people who didn't follow me yet grew 185%.
Mission Breathe Again
Run Coaching
I also coach a small number of runners directly: people managing a chronic illness, and people who just want to run better without white-knuckling every workout. (Turns out you don't need a diagnosis to overtrain out of fear. I checked.)
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Effort-based, realistic plans, real accountability, with someone who gets it. Running plans built around the same philosophy: train with your body, not against it.