Did Everything Right in Your Career? Oh, Really ...

In the major arcana in the Tarot the Chariot card has two messages - both a perfect fit for the current preoccupation with earning a good living in these disruptive times.

One message is: Yes, be strategic. Observe the rule book. Be determined.

The other message is: Simultaneously, go with the flow, follow the current. Ignore conventional success guidance.

I advise clients that the second message is the more important one. In my intuitive career coaching and in reading posts and comments on professional anonymous networks such as Reddit and Fishbowl I bump up against this tragedy: Professionals did "everything right," at least in terms of the professional playbook, and yet they weren't promoted, have been frozen out, or even terminated. 

How I size up those situations is that they somehow missed what was really going on and therefore what mattered in getting ahead on a job and holding on to it. That is, they weren't going along with the flow. They weren’t following the current.

No, you don't have to be an iconoclast. Actually, many big winners in professional life have traditional backgrounds and are buttoned-up. Yet, they get it that the usual success formulas can be downright misguiding. 

For example, a fundamental is hard work. But in reality in much of professional services the soft skills override the impacts of hard work per se. Sure, put in the hours, ensure you do the face time. However, by themselves they might not get you what you expect.

That's exactly what Stanford Graduate School of Business teaches. As The Economist reports, the curriculum includes not only finance, accounting, and computer modeling. It is also heavy on developing the kind of self-awareness skills which go into shaping presence and facilitating authentic interaction. In April 2021, establishment The New York Times published an article saluting the Tarot as a tool for self-awareness. 

In a job search and when on the job, open up to figuring out what is the actual game, not what it is supposed to be. It was human-relations genius William Shakespeare who observed that nothing is what it seems. His comedies illustrate that meme. Those who take the rules for what they are wound up looking foolish - or worse. Shakespeare's tragedies follow his comedies. 

Meanwhile, it's wise to be circumspect about what you discern are the realities of your workplace. Allow the world you operate in to continue to function in make-believe. That’s what most organizational cultures are about.

Do this: Put your energy into your own unique moves and how they should change on a dime. And keep changing.

Disney’s Bob Iger is no longer the kind of leader and manager he had been in his first time in that CEO position. And he has gained the upper hand in the high-profile feud with conservative forces.

In professional services, chair of law firm Paul Weiss Brad Karp has the greatest capacity for growth of any player I have studied. In a down market for law firms Paul Weiss is handling the funds part of financial giant Apollo’s take-private deal for Arconic. It also has scooped up a majority of the bankruptcy actions.

In communications, former editor-in-chief of legal tabloid Abovethelaw Elie Mystal shifted from that one-dimensional role to where the action turned to be. For him it has been book publishing and being a broadcasting analyst.

Takeaway: Everything changes: The world, the economy, technology (think generative AI), your industry, your organization, your colleagues, and you. Pick up on that before you have to.

Tarot Card Reader. Medium. Intuitive Career Coach.

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