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Even before I launched coaching as a formal service, I was doing this. Sitting with friends, family, people I cared about — trying to help them understand themselves and each other a little better. The tests came naturally. I had used them on myself first as part of my own personal development journey, and once I saw what they unlocked, I wanted everyone around me to have the same access.
Now, at the start of every new coaching relationship, I ask three things of every client. Take the MBTI. Take the Enneagram. Take the ACE.
They are not hoops to jump through. They are the foundation of everything that follows.
A quick note before we go further. The approaches and techniques in this post are not my own invention. They found their way to me while I was doing my own inner work, and I am sharing what worked for me. “Motion creates emotion” and the modelling technique I describe below are both prominent in the teachings of Tony Robbins — someone whose work has shaped how I think about psychology, physiology, and change. Where the tools belong to someone else, I will say so. Credit matters.
Why I Start Here
Every person I coach is fluent in their own experience. They know what they feel, what they want, what keeps tripping them up. What most people lack is the language to explain it clearly — to themselves, and to the people around them.
That is the first problem the tests solve. When two people have both done the MBTI and the Enneagram, they stop talking past each other. They develop a shared vocabulary. They can say things like “I need more processing time before I respond — that’s how I’m wired” and have it land as information rather than an excuse.
The third test — the ACE — solves a different problem. It helps us understand what might be running in the background. Patterns that have no obvious cause. Behaviours that keep returning no matter how much willpower is applied. Responses that feel bigger than the situation warrants.
Together, the three tests give us a working map. Not a definitive truth — people are more complex than any questionnaire — but a reliable starting point.
Test 1: The MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)
The MBTI has been around since the 1940s. It identifies 16 personality types based on four dimensions: where you get your energy (Introvert or Extravert), how you take in information (Sensing or iNtuitive), how you make decisions (Thinking or Feeling), and how you structure your life (Judging or Perceiving).
What makes it useful in a coaching context is not the label — it’s what comes with it. Each type comes with archetypes: real, documented people who share your wiring. Public figures, historical leaders, artists, entrepreneurs. When a client discovers their type, I give them one instruction: find someone with your type who has achieved something you want to achieve. Then spend a few days going deep. Read every interview. Listen to every podcast. Watch every talk.
This is the modelling technique — a concept Tony Robbins teaches extensively — and it works. In a matter of days, you can access what took that person a lifetime to learn. The MBTI gives you a blueprint for who you might become, and how to get there given how you are actually put together.
If you have never been able to find someone who did exactly what you want to do, model the spirit rather than the specifics. Find someone who attempted something that had never been done before — the Apollo astronauts, a founder who built something from nothing, an artist who created an entirely new form. You do not need a carbon copy of your ambition. You need proof that audacity is survivable.
I am an INFJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging. It is the rarest type in the MBTI framework. The reason it is rare is telling: it requires both high intellectual capacity and deep empathy to coexist. And that kind of empathy, in my experience, tends to develop when someone has been exposed to difficulty or emotional disappointment early enough in life that it becomes part of the foundation — not something added on top. You pay for it young. It becomes a superpower later. The hero’s journey, essentially.
Test 2: The Enneagram
Where the MBTI is relatively stable over time, the Enneagram is designed to move. It identifies nine core personality types, each with its own motivations, fears, and growth edges. It is not a fixed label — it is a snapshot.
That is exactly why I use it. It shows me where a client is right now. If someone took the Enneagram two years ago and scored differently today, that is not a problem — it is data. It tells us whether something has genuinely shifted, or whether they are stuck in the same place and just calling it something different.
I recently retook the test myself. My result: Type 7 — The Epicure, also called The Adventurer. Type 7s are driven by a hunger for experience, possibility, and forward momentum. The fear underneath it is being trapped or in pain. When that plays out well, it produces someone who is genuinely energised by ideas and possibilities. When it plays out less well, it produces someone who keeps moving to avoid sitting with discomfort. Useful to know. Not a verdict — just a mirror.
The fact that my result has shifted since the last time I took it is the point. I have changed. The test confirms it. Either answer is useful — yes, I have grown, or no, I am still in the same loop. Both are information you can work with.
Test 3: The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences)
This one is different. It is not a personality assessment. It is a health screening tool — and the results matter more than most people realise.
The ACE questionnaire was developed in the late 1990s through a landmark study by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC. It asks ten questions about experiences before the age of 18: things like abuse, neglect, exposure to substance use in the home, or the loss of a parent. Each yes scores a point.
The research findings are significant. A score of six or more is associated with a reduction in life expectancy of up to 20 years compared to someone with a score of zero. If average life expectancy sits at around 80, a high ACE score puts a person at risk of living only to around 60. Not because of fate, but because of what unresolved trauma does to the body over time.
The most common ways it shows up: addiction to substances or alcohol, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and conditions like ADD and ADHD. These are not character flaws. They are the nervous system trying to cope with something it was never given the chance to process.
My own score is a four.
I discovered the ACE framework through an interview with a brain health specialist — and the research stopped me in my tracks. Because when I looked back at my life, there were patterns I had never been able to explain. Behaviours I kept returning to. Responses that felt out of proportion. The ACE score did not give me excuses. It gave me a map.
Download and complete the ACE Questionnaire →
What I Did With My ACE Score
When I got my result, I did not immediately go into problem-solving mode. I gave myself three months.
Every day — not a full day, maybe two or three hours — I sat with the questions I had answered yes to and I wrote. Not for an audience. Not with any plan for what to do with the words. Just to create a space for those experiences to surface, to be named, and to be felt.
There is something that happens when you let the body process an emotion instead of suppressing it. The thing stops having power over you. It cannot trigger the same response if it has already been moved through.
A lot of that writing became the foundation for my Landscapes collection. Over nearly a decade, I used photography as the same kind of container — going into nature, camera in hand, and allowing whatever was present to be expressed and documented. Art as therapy is not a metaphor for me. It is a literal health practice.
The shift I noticed most was awareness. Once I understood where certain patterns had come from, I could talk about them. I could say to someone: this behaviour takes me back to something, and we need to address it. I could look at my parents with more compassion — understanding that they likely carried their own unresolved scores, and that what looked like failure was, in many cases, the echo of something that was never their fault either.
What Happens When a Client Scores High
The first thing I notice is relief. Even when the number is confronting, there is something in finally having language for it. The cause and effect penny drops. People stop blaming themselves for patterns they genuinely could not have understood without this information.
From there, my role is to be honest: I am not a licensed therapist or medical practitioner, and I will not pretend to be. If a client scores high, I strongly encourage them to work with a qualified therapist or counsellor. That professional relationship is the primary one.
What I can offer is accountability and practical tools — not a replacement for therapy, but a support alongside it. Are you going to your sessions? Are you moving your body? Are you creating space for the unresolved emotion to surface, instead of pushing it back down?
Tony Robbins teaches that motion creates emotion — and it works in both directions. When you stop moving, low moods deepen. When you start moving — walks, stretching, resistance training, yoga, whatever fits your life — your emotional state begins to shift. Physiology and psychology are not separate systems. The body keeps score, and the body can also lead the way out.
Alongside movement, I introduce creative practice as a processing tool. Writing is the most direct. But music, painting, dancing, photography — virtually any act of genuine creativity can become a container for what needs to be expressed. You do not need to be an artist. You need to show up and let the thing out. When trauma is no longer circulating in the nervous system looking for release, it stops finding other ways to get your attention.
On Fear of the ACE Test
Most people who resist taking the ACE test are afraid of what they might find. That makes complete sense. But the truth does not get less true because you avoid looking at it.
Life has a mechanism for unlearned lessons: they repeat. And they come back louder each time. The pattern that tripped you up at 25 becomes harder to ignore at 35 and genuinely costly by 45. The sooner you name it, the sooner you get to do something about it.
The ancient Stoics had a phrase: know thyself. It is not a motivational poster line. It is the prerequisite for everything else. You cannot build a meaningful career, a real relationship, or a sustainable creative practice on a foundation you have never examined.
The upside of taking the test is not a comfortable afternoon. It is the rest of your life.
My Results, In Full
For what it is worth — here is where I land:
MBTI: INFJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging. The rarest type. Costs you early. Pays you later.
Enneagram: Type 7 — The Epicure. Driven by possibility. Learning to stay when staying is the harder thing.
ACE Score: 4. Enough to explain some patterns I could never account for before. Worth knowing.
I am sharing this not because it is easy, but because the old Stoics were right: knowing yourself is the launch pad. It is where every other kind of growth begins.
Share Your Results in the Comments
If you have taken these tests — or take them after reading this — and you feel safe enough to share what came up, I would love to hear from you in the comments below.
Not on social media. Here. This is a better container for that kind of conversation.
Even a number. Even “I didn’t expect that.” Whatever landed.
You do not have to share. But if you do, you might find that someone else needed to read exactly what you wrote.
Ready to Go Deeper?
If any of this resonated and you are wondering whether coaching might be the right next step, start here:
Take the Readiness Quiz →
It takes about five minutes. It tells us both where you are and whether we are a good fit.
If you already know you want to talk, you can book a coaching call directly:
I speak technology. I speak creativity. I have a fairly high emotional coefficient. And I would be glad to walk this path with you — even if it is just for a chapter.
Your story deserves it.
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