Life After Prison

When I retired from prison chaplaincy in 2023, I knew that my working life wasn’t over. I had started studying the Enneagram personality typing system, and I wanted to become a personal development coach using that framework to help people learn and grow.

I had been “coaching” people under different guises for over thirty years, as a meditation instructor and a prison chaplain. I have always loved one-on-one conversations in any context. I tend to go deep quickly, learning more about others and connecting with them. Professional coaching was a natural next step for me, and the Enneagram was a perfect vehicle for doing that.

That fall, I completed the final two courses of The Narrative Enneagram’s Foundation Program. The deeper I went into the Enneagram, the more excited I became. I was gaining extraordinary insight into myself and others, and my understanding of the human journey took on a whole new dimension.

How could I turn it into a business?

I took an evening course from the Small Business Development Center to help me with the practical stuff. At the beginning of that course, the client base I had in mind was Correctional staff—the first business name I came up with was Ennea Corrections. But I didn’t want to limit myself to that market and thought long and hard about a more universal name.

One evening as I was driving home from class, my business name came to me: Ennea Deep. I felt a thrill and knew that was it.

With the help of my SBDC Advisor, Chris Hollaway, I built a website. Building the site took me way outside my comfort zone with technology, but I persevered and was delighted to see the site start to take shape. With great joy, I completed all the steps and launched the site—enneadeep.com—on November 16, 2023.

And I started to do a little business, leading workshops and coaching clients. I loved it.

I still needed to get certified.

The following summer I began professional certification training in the Enneagram. Deeper and deeper I went, learning how to help people discover their Enneagram Type, then learning how to help them expand beyond it. I graduated from the program, proudly becoming a Certified Narrative Enneagram Practitioner. I was gaining momentum.

As I worked with clients, I began to notice that almost every coaching session drifted towards relationship issues.  I would make suggestions to the client based on the extensive work I had done in conflict resolution, weaving together communication skills with an understanding of their Enneagram Type.

I was starting to find my niche.

In the meantime I was also working on my book, Crossing the Bridge, and everything started to come together. Because I wanted people to find me easily online as the author of the book, I started using my own name as my business name and built a new website—trimepersinger.com. (Legally, I still operate under Ennea Deep LLC.)

The new site reflects what I feel most passionate about and what I am uniquely able to help people with—combining the Enneagram with practical training in relationship skills, a skill set I call Courageous Communication. These are the same skills that I learned myself and that transformed my own relationships. I have taught them for decades, including teaching them to prison inmates for ten years. They are what my book is all about.

Adding the Enneagram into the mix provides the rocket fuel. Whatever communication challenges people face, understanding their Enneagram Type shows them where those challenges are coming from. Then, when they learn and practice different communication skills, they can do so with insight and compassion for themselves and the other person.

I still had to get the word out.

Marketing myself has always been challenging for me. I decided to meet the challenge head on by hiring a marketing coach. I interviewed one consultant whom I liked. When I asked him for a proposal, though, he sent me a rate sheet. I was not impressed.

Within a day or two of that disappointment, I received a LinkedIn connection request from Heather Philipp, a marketing specialist. I looked at her LinkedIn profile, liked what I saw, and requested to meet with her. By the end of that first conversation, I was hooked. The proposal she sent me following that meeting hit every note, and I hired her.

I had thought that I had two distinct businesses: my book and my coaching. Heather helped me to see that I had one business (myself) with two related expressions. This integration was a significant shift for me. My business now feels grounded and real.

I recently revised my website to reflect this new approach. Many pages have different content and there is a new page on coaching, which I would love for you to visit here.

The journey continues.

I invite you to join me in taking a deeper dive into Courageous Communication by reading Crossing the Bridge, which can be purchased here.

If you’re interested in working with the strengths and challenges of your Enneagram Type, especially in the context of your relationships, please feel free to book a free half-hour session with me here.