Sydney Jackson-Clockston
It’s Never Too Late to Ask for Help
It was a bad time to launch a travel business and Sydney Jackson-Clockston, a young entrepreneur who had finally gotten out from under a series of terrible bosses to chart her own course, saw it coming a mile away. She had enough international contacts to know that whatever this virus sweeping China turned out to be, it was coming our way next. The group cruises and romantic proposals and the bucket-list trip to the Holy Land…all ground to a sudden halt, taking Sydney’s dreams for her concierge travel business down with it.
Voices of self-doubt – voices that had been with her since childhood – flooded her mind. Always a bright and motivated student, Sydney did well in her classes except in one key area: spelling. Every evening, her mother would come home from the multiple jobs she worked to maintain the family’s tenuous position in the middle class, and she would work with Sydney on vocabulary words, but the results were always the same. No sooner would Sydney have moved on to the next word than the first word’s letters would vanish. Teachers told Sydney’s mother that she was smart enough, just “lazy” when it came to spelling, and while that designation stung, it was far kinder than what the kids at school said about her struggles. Finally, Sydney’s mom prevailed on the school district to get her tested and sure enough, it was not laziness at the root of Sydney’s spelling challenges; it was dyslexia.
The diagnosis brought with it understanding from her teachers but not much by way of academic support, the need for which Sydney felt as a source of shame. As the oldest of four siblings, she prided herself on her independence; asking for help felt like an admission of failure. It was hard to quiet the barrage of negative self-talk that told her she must be stupid for not being a better speller or, as she got older, ugly for not getting asked out on dates.
Sydney eventually managed to work around her dyslexia, earning a BA in Natural Resource Recreation and Tourism and Business along with an MTM, a Masters in Sustainable Tourism Management, from CSU in Ft. Collins. After completing her degrees, she moved to a resort in CO where she became the on site wedding coordinator , a role she would have loved had it not been for the abusive manager she and the other staff were forced to tolerate. She changed jobs but was no more content, and had just summoned the courage and resources to strike out on her own when the pandemic hit and upended her plans.
As a child, needing help had been a source of shame. As an adult, Sydney realized she was once again in need of help, but this time, she was able to see it not as a source of shame but as an opportunity. She didn’t know exactly what she needed, but she did know she had to get herself up off the floor and figure something out, so she hired a coach to guide her through a process of reevaluation. Slowly, a new path began to emerge, one of using the tools she had honed to empower others in her community. Sydney had always been driven by her values – equity, honesty, creating space for transformation both for herself and others – and now it was time to lead from there.
Having practiced for years what she calls the “mental gymnastics” of silencing negative self-talk and learning to reframe those messages into something healthy, Sydney wrote and self-published a book called My Own Worst Critic: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome. In that, she teaches readers how to approach life from a place of gratitude (for one thing, stop beating yourself up for those extra pounds and start appreciating the beauty and power that resides there too) and shifting the focus from one of scarcity to abundance. Having gotten all she could from her career coach, Sydney now works as a coach herself, both with a community-based nonprofit, the Rocky Mountain Microfinance Institute, and through her own coaching and consulting business, Citrine Unlimited LLC, through which she helps her clients navigate the structural, financial and personal hurdles they must overcome to reach their goals.
Sydney knows the helping hand she is able to extend to others would not have been possible had she not accepted help for herself first. Today, accompanied by her two Shitsu Poodles Bonnie and Clyde and her husband of 9 years (it turns out she didn’t need to go on a lot of dates, just the right date) she is excited to continue her work in her community and to expand her business even further.
It is never too late to ask for help.
To learn more about Sydney and to contact her, please click HERE