YouandTheTarot

The mystical Tarot cards are a channel for conjuring up self-awareness. That's what The New York Times salutes them for in an April 2021 feature.  Had Rudy Giuliani had a Tarot reading after he had exited the 2008 Presidential Election he might have not become so lost. The card the Tarot reader might have pulled could have been the Ten of Swords. That would have brought him in touch with how deeply hurt he had been to let go of his boyhood dream of becoming President of the United States.  Then Giuliani could have done the hard work of healing. Seemingly he never has been able to do that. Perhaps even until today he has not become aware of the pain. It could still be buried in his subconscious. The Tarot releases the material from the subconscious. What is sadder than that is this: The most recent biography of him - "Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor" - has no compasssion for the former New York City mayor's pain. The author Andrew Kirtzman is...

  "We're scared to let go ofour agenda and listen for what wants to happen ...We feel safer projecting our imaginings of how things ought to be ..."  - From the Chapter "Four Of Cups" in the 2021 book TAROT FOR CHANGE  by Jessica Dore. The Tarot card for the Four of Cups is about resisting change. Its graphic is of a person parked under a tree, with his arms crossed tightly against his chest. A cup is being offered to him. He doesn't even give it a glance. One interpretation of the Four of Cups is that what makes us block out what the universe is willing to give us is that, as Dore puts it,"we forgotten how to listen." What we can't hear is what is going on outside ourselves in the world.  Instead we are preoccupied with the voices in our head. Often those are called the "committee of the mind." In addition, we spin fantasies about what we assume we want and how we are certain we will get it. Meanwhile, life passes us by. Of course, t...

Dread. RTO means having to deal in-person daily with The Gunners. Essentially they are the ones consumed by almost surreal ambition. That drive may or may not correlate with actual talent. But they figure out how to transcend any talent deficits with myriad strategies. Yes, they are busy bees. Often they do get ahead. But just as often they are sidelined. That could be because they are not likable. Typical is that they shoot themselves in the foot, eventually.   But what must concern you now that you are back in the office is that The Gunners are a reality. Here are 5 tips on how to manage The Gunners so that they don't derail your own career and cause yourself to become emotionally undone.   Don't compare.    Of course, they are gaining career momentum. That's what they do. You might feel intimidated or that you, like them, should have conquered more territory in the organization.    But you have no idea what is going on inside them. Their bravado per...

Scroll through professional networks such as Reddit Jobs and threads pop up like this one about the trauma of being fired. You bet, it is a trauma. And anyone who piles on you the platitude that it's an opportunity shoud be told off. If it is an opportunity you have had to crawl naked through broken glass to get to it. But the reality is that it is necessary to move on. After all, you have to continue to earn a living. Solid guidance on how to do that and more comes from the 2021 book   "Tarot for Growth" by Jessica Dore.  In Dore's interpretation of the Tarot's Five of Swords you have a choice in how you tell yourself and the world the "story" about that latest development in your professional life. We are the stories we tell. The card depicts a person in transition holding and surrounded by swords. In the Tarot the swords symbolize many things. Two of them are intellectual processes and, within them, rigidity of the categories. The message: Be aware o...

  "CEOs Can't Fix Our Biggest Problem With RTO: Commuting"  - Headline from  Bloomberg , September 23, 2022   In the film "The Land of Steady Habits" all that's wrong with Wall Street is symbolized by the commute to and from New York City. The camera pans on exhausted middle-aged white men getting off the Metro North late into the evening and having their wives picking them up at the train station.    That commute into Manhattan from Westport, Connecticut also captured professional unhappiness in the classic book/film "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit."    And commuting was considered so time-consuming by leaders in large law firms based in the Big Apple that it had been speculated that those such as Cravath, Kirkland & Ellis, and Paul Weiss paid the high salaries so that their lawyers could afford to live close to the office. If the client's hotel went on fire those lawyers could be "on it" within 10 minutes. Let the strategic me...

  "You developed a protective strategy commonly known as perfectionism, which means you organize your life around avoiding contact with any potential indications of being inadequate, defective ...Trying new things is a direct threat to that defense." - Nine of Cups Chapter in 2021 book Tarot for Change by Jessica Dore. It's that perfectionism which can trigger compulsive working. We see it all the time. As the Nine of Cups in the Tarot reveals, that often puts on the blinders for the kind of creative thinking which generated the smartphone. Instead of a Steve Jobs there is an in-the-box plodder and that plodder often burns out or is forced out. The expected results don't happen.  Perfectionism can also kill. In a Law.com article the widow of Sidley Austin law partner Gabe MacConaill - Joanne Litt - fingers her husband's "maladaptive perfectionism" as responsible for his suicide. He wouldn't or couldn't seek a solution for the relentless amount ...

 Money is real. So are those employer-provided benefits such as medical insurance. Also, some work situations provide a real shot at upward mobility. The poster on Reddit Jobs got caught up in that need-cluster. He parachuted out of the work he loved - radio - to take a job at IBM. Now he is miserable and eventually will try to circle back to radio. Here is the  thread. That is a common "bad decision." But it's so understandable, especially in this era of inflation.  What I do in my intutive career coaching is helping clients assess the tradeoffs from a variety of perspectives. Those include money, of course. But they involve necessary investments in a career path. The typical example are the new law school graduates who opt for 14-hour days in Big Law in order to nail that resume credential. In two years they know they will be able to have more choices in what kind of work situation they want.  Those young lawyers, some of whom I have coached, are totally strategic....

  "... a porous [boundary] ... keeps us incessantly scanning the horizon for incoming threats ... what a toll that can take on one's life force, making little else possible." -  "Tarot for Change," by Jessica Dore, Penguin Life, 2021. So, how do you know your boundaries are porous? As Dore explains, the red flags are hardening resentment about saying "yes" too often and/or guilt after saying "no." Riding such an emotional roller-coaster is exhausting. It also distracts you from going after what you want. Porous boundaries are especially common in gregarious societies such as America where we are socialized to be agreeable and accommodating.  The first step out of this bad habit is to assess interactions in your professional and personal lives through the Return on Investment metric. That is, you ask yourself what is in it for you? In itself that will insert a pause in the compulsion to deliver a fast "Oh, Sure."  The next is to co...

The mysticism of the Tarot cards is optimistic. Okay, some cards such as the Moon carry warnings of darkness. But embedded in that message is reassurance of the ability to roll with whatever. Specifically it is the Sun card which symbolizes hope. And the World card salutes the victory of having overcome life’s difficulties, at least so far. Clients get to hear they are back on their way. The Tarot is a platform for hope, no matter what. That’s one reason why Tarot readings are being selected for insight/healing   by more and more people.  NPR salutes us Tarot readers as the new version of the traditional psychologist. And The New York Times documents Tarot readings as authentic tools for self-awareness and introspection. There is a lightness of being, which many forms of traditional therapy don’t provide. Clients are transported. In a sense they emerge from confusion or crisis more than whole. They are different. Just like Tarot readers, defense lawyers also sell hope....

The US Supreme Court is a man-made institution. That had been the handiwork of the Founding Fathers when they set up the three branches of the US government. Yet, its current Chief Justice John Roberts positions and packages that entity in, well, Platonic terms. He attributes its legitimacy to a kind of universal form, as the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato had. Many monarchies had the same take, that is, until the people disagreed. Poof went the French version. Now, if the winter is cold enough and enough folks in England can’t afford the heat the monarchy there could also lose its legitimacy. The Netflix documentary “The Royal House of Windsor” exposes the clever public relations strategies the British royals conjured up to preserve that institution in one of its worst of times. In terms of the history of thought there is nothing wrong with Platonism. In fact, some of us Tarot readers build our practice on the belief of the existence of archetypes. Those include the collective...

“Goldman’s loss rate on credit card loans is the worst among big U.S. card issuers and ‘well above subprime lenders’ at 2.93%, according to a Sept. 6 note from JPMorgan. ” – CNBC , September 12, 2022. That’s the latest negative development going down during the leadership of Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman David Solomon . CNBC notes that during this week’s board meeting he will probably take heat for that. The Apple credit card which helped achieve market share has soured as a money-maker. That throws shade on Solomon for his leadership in consumer finance. In addition there has been the best-selling high-profile expose about Goldman Sachs “Bully Market” by a former managing director Jamie Fiore Higgins. She attacks the culture. On Amazon, it ranks at 2,474. The class action gender bias litigation long rattling around – “Chin-Oster, et al. v Goldman Sachs” (here is background information from the plaintiffs’ law firm) – will have its day in court in June 2023. Courtroom activity...

 Yes, animals mourn. Usually profoundly.  Therefore, we animal lovers around the world have turned our attention to Queen Elizabeth's remaining four dogs. Over her lifetime she had been a pet parent for about 30.  The signs of their grief will range from a drop-off in energy to disinterest in eating. Nudging them back to a new normal will require patience and loving.  In the Tarot that loss is symbolized by the Five of Cups. The figure in that card stands alone, bent over in emotional pain. Three knocked over cups, representing the past, stand on one side. Two upright cups, representing the possibilities in the present and future, are on the other side - and ignored. The overwhelm of grief blocks any route to optimism, at least right now. Newsweek speculates that the Queen's children will take over the care of the dogs. Andrew had a special bond with her and had gifted her with some of the current dogs. Most likely he could adopt all of them, to keep them together a...

" Ready to Work Until You Die?"   That is the headline in  Bloomberg  today.   The now-usual play-out in aging is evolving into this. Clients for my intuitive career coaching practice parachute in on those milestone birthdays such as 40 or 50 or even 60. Most are full of regret that they haven't accomplished more in their careers. My usual response - and it is amazingly effective - is that there is plenty of time in a career to build what could be much more successful. Yes, leap into the big time.   Yesterday I bluntly put it to a 40-something who had just entered management and assumed she should be "further ahead." What I observed was that this was a new platform for both acquiring additional skills and contacts and leveraging that bundle for a much better Next. The core message was:  You will probably be working 40 more years +.   Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is 91. Obviously he continues to have a firm grip on his New Corp empire....

 The emerging pain is the "tell" that senior year in college is so pivotal. By graduation there should be completed that shift from being a protected child to an adult and from a compliant student to a fierce strategic career planner. Such pain should already be setting in for the Class of 2023. That's exactly why parents start contacting me around this time to set up a Tarot reading for their offspring. The Tarot, as the book Tarot for Change   documents, is a proven tool for navigating transitions. Back in April 2021 The New York Times went on record about how useful the Tarot is for self-awareness. The Tarot card that captures the process of transformation is the Magician. Carl Jung labeled that disruption "alchemy." Essentially pieces are brought together and reconfigured to create what didn't exist before. And what is of immense value. The immature student undergoes all the necessary rites of passage. Eliminated is all the usual adjustment trauma of l...

 They went the route of being totally hyper. Along with that had been the unleashing of what might be labeled "bullying" of subordinates. And since they didn't achieve the objectives the organization had set for them they were out. That's usually when they decide to try a Tarot reading. For them what usually comes up in a one-card pull is the Strength card.  There are as many interpretations of a Tarot card as there are Tarot readers around the world. However, a traditional reading of the Strength card is that it sends the message of calm and empathy as the  mode of influence. The image on the card has a woman stroking a lion on the head. The setting is nature. According to nature the lion is supposed to be a predator. However, the woman connecting with him through intuition has convinced him on the benefits of living in harmony.  As leaders, managers, and the rank and file return to work tomorrow they might consider trying calm and empathy as a way to get things d...

  "But, my other Tarot reader said that the Four of Pentacles meant I should be proud of my financial success." That's what a client blurted out when I interpreted that same card as a message that success had made him smug. And that was something to watch. In business, obviously, you have to be totally in the moment.  That's also when I explained the mysticism of the bipolar nature of the Tarot. In the book "The Jungian Tarot and Its Archetypal Imagery" author Robert Wang explains the duality in the Tarot. Each of the 78 cards could be interpreted in a positive or a negative manner.  Of course, I picked up the celebratory meaning of success in the Four of Pentacles. But my intuitive take was that the client had already enjoyed that phase. He should have moved on from it to embracing fresh challenges. Otherwise he would be stuck.  Since clients tend to be paying by the minute, I assessed that it was cost-efficient for him if I only presented that darker mean...

  Let's cut to the chase. After my career change from legal communications to being a Tarot reader (played out as intuitive career coaching) I am being treated with extreme respect by clients. Such deference is in contrast to, as Insider articles ( like this one ) keep pounding, how badly all but senior partners typically are treated in the law-firm sector. (The exception had been Paul Weiss chairperson Brad Karp who had even provided mentoring.)   But that - respect - is the tip of the transitional iceberg. The work involved in Tarot reading is fun. In a certain way.  See, Tarot readers are the new  therapists.  We have a front-row seat in observing what is going on in the human heart and how the mind (mostly a faulty machine with lots of loose wiring) sputters.  So much spills out. In this era when no one listens, there is a compulsive need to confide.  What secrets I hear. Given how much of that there is, I wonder: Can the content be protected by pr...