Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Dickson.
Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I fell in love with the Enneagram in 2013, when I found it through a Google search. I was searching for a professional development tool to utilize with the people I was supervising that was more than the standard MBTI or True Colors or StrengthsQuest. None of those were bad; I just wanted something different. Google took me to a document with no author that detailed the ways that our Enneagram type both strengthen us and the ways that it took us away from the greatness of who we were created to be. I liked that it wasn’t just all nice, but it gave us a path to our most authentic selves. I have seen it transform people throughout the years, myself included. I first used the Enneagram when I worked in higher education. I worked on the Student Development/Student Affairs side of the university experience where the students lived in Residence Life. I did training and development, crisis response, student conduct hearings, policy writing, recruitment, curriculum writing, and more throughout my time in higher ed. And in 2018, I realized that I couldn’t support students in the same way that I had before and became burned out. It was time for me to leave my role.
Throughout 2019, I job hunted and tinkered with the idea of having my own coaching business. That idea didn’t get too far – just some market research and a few clients. When I left my higher ed position in July 2019, I went to work for another coach who was doing work, I thought I wanted to do. And when that didn’t work out, I left that position in January 2020. I had some decisions to make – would I get another job or do this ‘business thing’? In March, I decided to dive into creating my own Enneagram coaching business full time. All I knew was that I believed that when Black women heal, the world heals. When Covid came to the U.S., my good intentions were shut down – all the places I thought I’d meet people and get clients seemed to disappear within moments. I fumbled with a few offerings here and there. I learned that you actually DO need to tell people about things that you’re selling if you want to welcome people into becoming paying clients. Go figure! At the end of May, George Floyd was murdered with the world watching and weeping. And the world’s heart broke open in a way that I’ve never seen before. I decided to utilize my over a decade of diversity education experience to launch an antiracism program for white women to do their own personal work around their own bias while utilizing the Enneagram to transform their lives. And as I started to build out this offering, I realized that many people are missing a critical piece in their personal growth and development or spiritual work – how does my personal culture, dominant culture, and my embodied relationship to privilege impact the way that I show up in the world? In much of my work supporting people’s growth in higher ed, it was primarily with people of color. The conversation about how our race and gender expression and upbringing impact the way we express ourselves and the ways we see our Enneagram type were always part of those conversations. And I realized this summer they aren’t conversations that were being had in the broader Enneagram world. That needed to change. And it still needs to change. My business has expanded to make sure that people get the chance to explore their Enneagram type and do their personal growth work while acknowledging and heeding the ways their embodied identity expression colors both the way they see the world and the work that is theirs to do to create a world of freedom and justice for all.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would say that it has not been completely smooth. There were times when I wanted to quit. When I thought, “Does the work I want to do and the world I want to create really matter?” Being an entrepreneur is choosing to go on a journey that is unpredictable. It has put me more in touch with my heart and vulnerability than I ever expected. Does this work matter? Will anyone want to invest? Will I always have to work so hard? I had my first month where I could pay my rent in May, after I decided to spent my birth month (May!) inviting people into the work that I was offering at the time. I invited 35 people to work with me for my 35th birthday. While I didn’t hit the number, I got used to talking bout myself as an entrepreneur. And from there on, I’ve continued to expand my business as well as what I offer. I had to truly learn to believe in myself. Through this questioning, I started to see what the gaps and what my unique place was, and for that, I am grateful.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I run my own business as a life empowerment coach – utilizing the Enneagram to support people in creating freedom! I am known for my unique take on Enneagram work – combining the Enneagram with identity exploration to take personal growth work deeper. And even more specifically, combining Enneagram work with antiracism work and liberation work, respectively. The Enneagram applies across cultures, but the work that we have to do around our Enneagram type will be impacted by our sociocultural identities and the things that we cling to maintain society’s status quo. Let me back up, in case people don’t know what the Enneagram actually is! It is a holistic development system that is transformative. It points us, beneath the actions that we take in the world, to our core motivations, beliefs, thought patterns, emotional habits, and gives the space to explore what might be unconscious so we can transform it and live with more freedom and authenticity. There are 9 Enneagram types, and we each have a core type. It can be hard to find our Enneagram type through a test for several reasons – binary tests hardly see the nuance that we have, and often if something is unconscious, we won’t answer correctly. I tell people that finding your type is a journey. It took me two years to land on my core type 8, as I originally mistyped as a two. And when I finally saw that 8 was my core, so much clicked for me. I saw the reasons people perceived me the way they did and the reasons I had the reactivity around the things I did. My world looked different when I found my core type. The work that I do is about expansion – it’s about allowing ourselves to be fully human and growing into a bigger version of ourselves than we knew possible.
When we understand, “This is my Enneagram type’s core fear arising” or “I got this core belief from my grandmother,” or even, “I have had to be this way in dominant culture because it’s the way for me to be accepted and heard,” we live more at the choice and with more intentionality. I help people see that many of the things people have been told to be ashamed of are inherited contexts that we have the opportunity to look into and unpack. That the things people judge themselves for are human things and that curiosity is more supportive than self-flagellation. I help people see that the ways they’ve been told to play small no longer serve them and it’s time for them to step out and into a larger vision for who they are. I’m most proud of the relationships I have with my clients and those within the communities that I get to facilitate and lead. The way my clients show up is incredible. And the way they apply what they’re learning is such a massive gift to me. I also am a fitness instructor and one of the joys of my world is helping people see that they can do much more than their minds and even their bodies think that they can. Having a bigger body, I am just one example that size doesn’t have to stop anyone from pursuing what health is for them and that they truly are capable of more. Body love is an important part of my journey that I hope to embue in the places I lead.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I think what’s paramount for me is my authenticity. I decided from the start that I couldn’t do business strategies and tactics that didn’t align with my integrity. I invite people into an experience, knowing that this work is deep and that it’s not for everyone. One thing that I tell my clients, whether one on one or within a group, is that I am human. I am fully human. Not just a coach or a teacher. I will not be objectified and reduced. And I don’t expect them to do that to me, one another, or themselves. So they get 100% of me, and they get to be 100% them without any qualifiers. As I continue to expand, that will continue to be very important to me.
Pricing:
- (Re)Discovering You – 3 month entry level program – $2,000
- 12 Week One-on-One Anti-Racist Enneagram Coaching – $3,000
Contact Info:
- Email: hello@jessicaddickson.com
- Website: jessicaddickson.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/jessicaddicksoncoaching
- Facebook: facebook.com/jessicaddicksoncoaching
Image Credits
Anna Johnson of BoudoirEgo, “Mariah McQueen, and Christian James Tejidor
