We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Crystal Dodson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Crystal below.

Hi Crystal, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

How many of you reading this have had the misfortune of experiencing the circumstance of being told you could no longer do what you wanted to do or what you loved to do? I know that each and every one of us can relate to this loss. Let me share my personal experience. When I was 12 years old, I had back surgery for scoliosis. For those who may be unaware of what this is, it simply means curvature of the spine. To remedy this problem, I had to have something called Harrington rods which are simply metal (specifically titanium) rods put on each side of my spine to keep my spinal straight. This would be considered a major surgery at the time. They say that to find your purpose is a winding road, I apparently took that literally. As I convalesced, for an entire year of my life I couldn’t partake in any physical activity.

I started classical dance at 9 years old. After the surgery I couldn’t dance, run, play, or take gym class, I could barely walk. At 12 years old, I was supposed to start pointe ballet, and now that dream came to an end. More importantly, I couldn’t do anything a normal kid could do. Not to mention, I suffered from chronic back pain and debilitating spasms. I was absolutely devastated. My whole world changed with this surgery.

I needed a way to manage my pain without taking tons of pills every day. My dad gave me a book about eating and living a healthier life. After reading it, I decided that on my 13th birthday, I would become Pescatarian and give up eating meat except fish. My entire teen life moving forward was focused on living a healthier and holistic lifestyle. I took up dancing again and then at 15, I had to have another surgery on my back, and I was terrified. This time, it was an in-and-out surgery, but this was to be a minor setback. I found yoga when I was 16 years old or rather yoga found me. Yoga helped me to remain flexible, increase my mobility, and helped me find the inner peace I had been missing. All this time it had been a physical journey of pain relief, but my mental wellness needs work too.

My journey continued and I became a group exercise instructor at 19 years old teaching various classes on my college campus. Being raised as a foodie and having been fascinated by how food affects the body, I declared my major as Nutrition and Dietetics. I became a yoga teacher and personal trainer when I graduated college and began my career in the fitness and wellness industry teaching for various locations: private clients, boutiques, commercial gyms, and corporations. I wanted to help everyone I could, feel better, be better, and live better.

I dove deeper into various pain management techniques such as chiropractic services, physical therapy, massage, stretch therapy, the Bowen technique, and more. Then one day when I was 22 years old, I took an Iyengar yoga class. It uses props to help you get into poses more easefully for your body. I left the class and didn’t have any back pain for almost two days. I almost cried! I was so joyful and sad at the same time. I had chronic back pain coupled with crippling spasms for 10 years. I hadn’t remembered what it felt like to be pain-free. In my pain management journey, it took 10 years for me to have no back pain. I knew others suffered like I did from my time teaching, and I just knew with my knowledge, it didn’t have to take them as long as it took me to find relief.

My family and I didn’t know that we possibly had other options before surgery such as physical therapy and chiropractic services. We just didn’t know what we didn’t know. I wanted to be a resource for others and provide them with the information they needed to live their healthiest lives every day in all areas of wellness, not just the physical. EnVizion Wellness was born out of this need to help others live pain-free and be holistically well. One could say that my winding road led me straight to my final purpose in life!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I deem myself to be a personal wellness lifestyle concierge. After a lifetime of looking for pain management solutions, I realized that living your healthiest life wasn’t just physical. To focus on your total wellness, you need to be holistically well, focusing on your mental, intellectual, spiritual, nutritional, occupational, social, financial, and environmental wellness too. From fitness training and meal planning to dinner reservations and customer database management to errands and wellness consulting, I help others find the solutions they need to get back the time and energy to live their best life!

With my experience as an executive assistant, administrative assistant and operations manager, I provide busy professionals, entrepreneurs, and businesses with resources that help them, their teams, employees, and clients be more productive and develop a greater work/balance. This is done through seminars, data management, mindfulness sessions, and corporate and collegiate wellness sessions such as yoga classes. My company is unique. It is essentially a life coaching company that uses the 9 Dimensions of Wellness as a backdrop to giving my clients the resources they need to live their best lives.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I constantly think of where I want the business to be years from now. I want to leave a legacy behind for my future children. I want them to be serial entrepreneurs and continue to establish generational wealth. I know what I do is unique and is not everyone’s cup of tea. Who knows if my children will even want to continue in my footprints? I do know, however, that I want them to be prepared as my father tried to prepare me. My dad instilled in me the power of books for success and not just for leisure reading. The E Myth by Michael E. Gerber is a book I discovered later in my business career. It’s the reason I love creating operation manuals and standards of procedures for myself and other businesses. The E Myth prepares you to scale up waaay before you actually are ready to so you can prepare for future success. It encourages you to think of your business like a franchise even if it isn’t. How could someone run your business if you weren’t there? You’d have to leave the exact instructions that you would want them to follow to be successful. This would leave you with time free to focus on working “ON” the business without having to work “in” the business every day.

Another book 32 Ways to Be a Champion in Business by Earvin “Magic Johnson” showed me how my business could make an impact on my community and not just with individuals I took on as clients. By looking to help communities, especially underserved ones, I could inspire others to build and support businesses that help black and brown communities. This helped to refocus my efforts as an entrepreneur. I wanted to make a larger impact and this book showed me that it was possible.

As I continued my journey and shifted my focus into project and operations management for my small business clients, I was gifted The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp. It showed me how to be a better and more effective manager and leader by seeking to remain curious, staying open to learning, and moving past fear. Thus, allowing me to better serve and inspire teams who work with me. Additionally, it has allowed me to bring more creativity into my work and to do more of what I love with a greater purpose.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Before EnVizion Wellness was even a glimmer in my eye, after I graduated college with my bachelor’s in Nutrition and Dietetics, I thought I wanted my future business to focus on meal planning, group exercise, yoga, and personal training. Now, while I love this industry, I soon realized I had to shift so I could better serve my clients. They would ask me about how to make improvements in other aspects of life or tell me about their financial or work-life balance pain points. Additionally, I was being asked for administrative and organizational services as well as mindfulness meditation sessions. I realized my clients were those who needed help de-stressing at home, in the workplace, and within their businesses. Yes, I wanted my clients to be physically healthier, but I realized they needed help being mentally well too. Not only that, but they were also asking for ways to find clarity in all areas of their lives. This started having me think that there were other ways I could help people versus just being a fitness professional. As I mentioned before, I worked as a corporate professional for many years. My hidden superpower is in focusing on the details. I love organization! I love doing the things that most people do not want to and I do it well.

I had an aha moment one day where I realized I could combine my love of wellness and organization to help my clients get more time back in their day and have more energy to do the things they truly love while increasing their wellness in all areas of their life. Hence, becoming a wellness lifestyle concierge made sense to me and the mission of EnVizion Wellness really took shape. I already knew what it took to become physically well and I put my degree into practice so that I could improve my nutritional wellness. Mental and spiritual wellness came from studying yoga and being a bibliophile helped me improve my intellectual wellness. I began to study more in the areas of wellness that I wanted to learn more about such as financial, environmental, occupational, and social wellness. This shift helped me increase my productivity, revenue and make meaningful changes in the lives of my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.envizionwellness.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/envizion_wellness

Image Credits
@RewaxandUnwine @YogaEveryDaye @Air.mcm @_Spencer_charles @thevizionroom