75. How I use tarot cards as a business tool

Tarot is a very important tool for my business. In this episode, I'm unpacking how I use it

What I'm really teaching in this episode is how to work with any tool that gives you access to knowing beyond your rational mind - without giving away your power in the process.

Transcript

Hello, you're listening to Liberatory Business. I'm your host Simone Seol, and thank you so much for listening. Today, I thought we might talk about something fun, which is how I use tarot cards for my business.

Some of you might know that I used to be a professional tarot reader, meaning people paid me money to answer their questions and read cards for them. And I gotta say, I didn't do too bad. I had so many really great stories from that part of my life. The most memorable one is when someone asked me — I don't remember exactly what the question was, but it was something about a business decision. And I flipped cards, I sent her what I saw, and a week later she emailed me back and told me that the reading ended up saving her 20 grand. And I was like, "Damn, I gotta raise my prices."

Anyway, so I don't read cards for money anymore, but that doesn't mean I've stopped using them. I actually turn to tarot cards, not infrequently, for my business, and I wanted to share what I do and how I do it and why I do it.

This episode is for you even if you don't use tarot

Before I get into it, I want to say something for those of you who might not use tarot, or maybe think like, "Oh, I'm not sure about that." This episode is still for you, because almost everything I'm going to say in this episode isn't necessarily just about tarot. It's about how to use any tool that gives you access to a kind of knowing beyond your rational mind — whether that's dreams or trusting your gut or astrology or communing with your ancestors like I teach, or anything like that.

The questions are the same. How do you tell when to consult that source and when to do your own work? How do you ask questions in a way that doesn't hand over your agency? How do you tell the difference between real guidance and just your own projections? And how do you stay the author of your life while still being open to input from something beyond yourself?

These questions all apply whether you have an interest in tarot or not. And I think a lot of people use some form of this, and it's possible to use it in a way where you're undermining your own power and they don't realize it. So my hope is that by the end of this episode, you have a way of thinking about these kinds of tools that makes it more useful for yourself.

How I read cards

With that said, I want to start by talking about how I read cards, because I think that's actually a big part of why this tool works so well for me.

The way that I read tarot is quite different from the mainstream. And that's because of how I was taught by my own teachers. I don't subscribe to predetermined meanings of each image. I read the image and the visual elements within it in its pure form, which is to say, without any assumptions or preconceived fixed meanings.

So you know the little packet that comes in every deck of cards that tells you what each card means? Like, I throw that out. It's not useful, because all those quote-unquote meanings are just someone's thoughts about what a certain image means. But what an image means depends on the context, right? An image is an image, and the meaning is a story that we attach to it.

So for example, you can look at a circle and say, "Oh, those are coins. It means money." Or maybe the circle is a plate, or maybe it's a wheel, or maybe it's pointing out something that is whole, or maybe it's pointing out something that's empty. A wand could mean work, or it could be a stick that you beat somebody with, or it could be a wooden column that you build houses with. Or it could be a ruler, or it could be an orchestra conductor's baton.

What an image means depends on the context of your question. And given the context of your question, you can map out what analogies you can make that are logical to what's in the picture.

An example: the tower card

So let me give you an example so it's easier to understand. Let's say I'm trying to decide whether to dismantle a program that I've been running that's quite successful, popular. It's been running for many years, but there's one part of me that's like, "Mm, I don't know, maybe it's time to retire it." So I shuffle, I pull a card, and let's say it's the tower.

If you know anything about the tarot, you probably know about the tower card. A lot of people are afraid of the tower card. I know that every time I pulled up the tower card when I was doing readings for other people, people would be like, "Oh my God, no. Something terrible — that has to mean something terrible."

And I'd say, "Well, not necessarily," 'cause look what's actually in the image. I mean, every deck of tarot is different, but in many, many decks, the tower card has lightning striking a building. There's people falling out of it. Traditional quote-unquote meanings say that it's the card meaning disaster, a sudden collapse, everything falling apart.

So if I asked the question, "Oh, should I pull this program?" some people might interpret that as, "No, no, no. That's gonna end in disaster. It's a bad idea. Don't do it."

But once again, we're not doing predetermined meanings. I look at the image. What's actually there? There's a structure that's tall, built up high. It's prominent and visible, and there's lightning hitting it. It's like a flash of light, right? Coming from above, striking a precise spot in the tower. And the structure isn't falling apart over a long period of time due to natural deterioration. Because of the lightning, it's just kind of detonating in one decisive moment.

So mapped to the context of my question, the reading that I walk away with is — yeah, dismantle the program. It served its purpose. We've built up a structure that's visible from a long distance. It's prominent, and maybe it's time to release what's been inside. And the bolt of lightning from the sky, it's not necessarily something bad, something disaster. The rest of that card is dark, right? There's a light coming from above. Maybe that's clarity. Maybe it's saying, "Yeah, it's time for this program to go. And as you execute that move, don't dilly-dally. Do it in one swift motion, not like a drawn-out wind down."

So that's the kind of meaning that I might walk away with from drawing the tower card.

Why tarot?

Now let's talk about why tarot. Because there's lots of ways to get clarity, lots of ways to access spiritual insight, and I think that the tarot does something really cool that not all other tools do.

What tarot gives me is an image outside of my own head that I have to actively interpret. I have to engage multiple layers of my own awareness, my own consciousness, to interpret something outside of me. And that sort of externalization is what enables me to bypass the familiar loops of my thinking mind.

When I'm stuck, my own thoughts are usually circling along the same grooves, right? The tarot puts something in front of me, something concrete, and the act of interpreting it pulls me out of that loop. I think that can be very valuable for those people who tend to be in their own heads a lot.

When I actually turn to the cards

Okay, now I wanna talk about when I actually turn to the cards. I don't turn to it every time I have a question. I don't turn to it every time I need an answer.

I got to where I am in business by getting really good at methodically working through my own problems and conundrums. So when I feel stuck, I know how to run the diagnostic on myself, and I wanna walk you through that diagnostic — because I think for you to work well with the spiritual realm, you also have to work well with the non-spiritual realm.

So here's what I mean. If I need clarity, if I'm stuck, before tarot ever enters the picture, I run through this diagnostic examining five different levels of things.

Layer 1: Is this a mindset issue?

The first is, I clear whether there is a mindset issue involved. For example, am I stuck because I'm believing a limiting belief? Am I in fear? Am I in scarcity? Am I doubting myself? Am I trapped in an old, outdated story that tells me that I'm small, or whatever?

'Cause if that's what's going on, no amount of extra information or strategy or oracular guidance is gonna help. I need to do mindset work on myself. I have to be aware of my own beliefs. I have to question my beliefs. I have to work the limiting thought and get back to a clearer place internally before I can see the information, the situation clearly.

So one — first layer of the diagnostic — is, what's the mindset stuff involved.

Layer 2: Is this an information problem?

Secondly, I ask myself, is there an information problem? Am I stuck because I actually don't have enough data to make a good decision, and I have it in my power to go get data?

'Cause sometimes the answer is, go do more research. Like, go find the information, talk to people, get a quote, get the numbers. A lot of the times what we think is stuckness is actually just laziness, or impatience. Like, we just wanna sit here. We don't wanna do any of the work of gathering what we need to know, and we just want a magic answer to fall from the sky.

When I used to read cards for money, I'd sometimes get people asking me about their health problems, like their medical issues. Like, "Oh, this is happening to my ear. What's going on? Do I have some kind of disease? Should I be worried about it?" And I'd always be like, "Have you been to the doctor?" And they'd be like, "No, I haven't. I just want you to tell me." I'm like, "I think you should go to the doctor and ask the doctor first."

I think the cards kind of roll their eyes — if it was possible for cards to roll their eyes — when we ask questions that are really our work to go get the information on.

That's a really important thing to ask yourself: "Okay, is this an information issue that I'm responsible for solving?"

Layer 3: Is this a strategy issue?

Third layer of the diagnostic is, is this a strategy issue? Am I stuck because I'm using the wrong approach, and can I find out what a better strategy might be by, once again, doing some research or engaging my critical thinking?

Good example might be — let's say you really wanna meet a romantic partner, and you wanna ask tarot, and you're not meeting anyone, and you're single, and you don't wanna be single, and you're frustrated, and you're asking the cards, "Am I just meant to be alone in this part of my life?"

But let's say the whole time you've just been staying at home, not going anywhere, not meeting anyone outside of your house, and not signed up on any dating sites. You're doing nothing. You're just sitting at home all the time and wondering, asking the cards, "Am I just meant to be alone?" Like, you haven't checked your strategy. There are strategies to meeting people, and you're not doing anything about it.

Now, these are, of course, kind of extreme examples that I made up, but it shows you — where are you completely ignoring where you could use your brain, where you could reasonably think through things? "Okay, am I actually applying all the strategic insight that I can to this, if I'm being honest?"

So you have to give yourself that reality check. That matters.

Layer 4: Is there a spiritual misalignment?

Now, the fourth layer is, is there an energetic or spiritual misalignment?

I think spiritual misalignment is what happens when we are being given guidance about what is next or what is right for us or what we're meant to be doing — and we dismiss it because we don't want that to be true, because it's too confronting or it's too scary or whatever. But there is an awareness. We are tuned in to the sense of what's really meant for us.

So for example, if you know really deep down there's a desire that's been implanted in you — you can say it's from your ancestors, by your awareness of your destiny, whatever — that you want to do A. And because it's new and scary and you've never done it before, let's say the whole time you're pretending to yourself, "Oh, I don't wanna do that thing. That was just a dumb fantasy that I had. It's just a dumb idea. It's never gonna happen. That's not for me. I'm really happy with what I'm doing now," blah, blah, blah. That's an example of a spiritual misalignment.

A lot of the times we get stuck when we are trying to force something to happen fast that's not meant to happen fast, or when we wanna stay in a situation longer because it's comfortable when we really know deep down that we've outgrown that place. And when you try to force it to work and recruit the cards as a tool to help you do that, it's not gonna work.

Doing your homework first

In all this, what I'm trying to say is that there is so much that you know — that only you could know by dropping inside — that you want to own before you turn to any external tool.

I make myself do a lot of homework before I take to the cards, and I think that everyone else should too.

I think spiritual tools help us to get more knowledge, clarity, insight, confidence, whatever, when we've shown up with our end of the work. So when I reach a true impasse, I find that what I'm facing is usually not a situation where there is a clear right answer or a wrong answer, or a clear value-aligned answer versus a value-misaligned answer — because those are relatively easy. If you're running through the diagnostic, you can usually work those layers out.

So when the tarot for me is truly useful is when I'm facing two options which, depending on what angle you're looking from, both could be the right choice. It's like A could work and B could work. They're just different. Choose your own adventure. What do you want?

That way, it's really like the tarot is a collaborator with me in writing my own sovereign story. I've made decisions this way about pricing, about whether to take a business opportunity or accept an invitation from someone to collaborate or whatever, about whether to hire someone, about whether to introduce or retire a program and on what timeline.

Reframing your questions

So this is where I wanna suggest that some ways of reframing commonly asked questions could give you a lot more when it comes to working with the tarot. Let me show you what I mean.

Instead of asking, "Should I launch this program?" you could ask, "What do I need to be mindful of if I wanna make this launch a success?"

Instead of asking, "Will this hire work out?" maybe you can try asking, "What energy is this person bringing into my business?"

Instead of asking, "Is this the right pricing?" you might ask yourself, "What does this price tell me about how I'm valuing this offer?"

You see the difference. There's a way you can ask where you're asking the cards to decide for you, and then there's a way to ask where you're asking the cards to show you information, and then you're the one that takes the information and decides. That's sovereignty.

The paradox: sometimes the cards do tell you the outcome

Now, I'm about to tell you something that seems to contradict what I just told you about not asking the cards about outcomes. People who really use the tarot well, in my experience, are the people who can hold this paradox without needing to flatten it. So stay with me, because this is where the depth and magic of this tool actually lives.

Sometimes the tarot does just straight up tell me the outcome of a decision. It's gonna be good, it's gonna be bad. The purely secular explanation for how the tarot works, or something, a tool like that works, is that you're reading your own unconscious mind. That the tarot is a projective tool, and what comes through is just your own deeper knowing. It's like you're accessing your own inner wisdom through the cards.

And there's truth to that. I think a lot of it is that, and a lot of why the tarot is a valuable tool is exactly that. And I don't think that's all of it. I actually believe that if you come at it with a clean energy — and by that I mean, you come with a clean sense of your own agency — I think there is such a thing as tapping into something unseen, something that exists at a deeper layer than your own thoughts. And sometimes I think that deeper layer exists in spite of your own thoughts.

Because sometimes the tarot tells me something that I really don't wanna hear. Sometimes it tells me things that contradict what I was hoping to see, what I had already half decided on. And even then, there's a deep ring that I feel, a deep resonance. That recognizes truth of what is being shown to me, even if my psychology is like, "No, I don't want that to be true."

I know that what we think and project about the future is deeply entangled with our own psychological patterns, the static of our habitual thoughts. And I think we have to admit that it's really hard sometimes to cleanly separate that static from what's being forecasted by the cards or any oracular medium. I think we have to hold that complexity.

But I also can't pretend that I haven't repeatedly experienced something that feels not like reading my own mind and more like being shown something. It's low, it's quiet, and even when your mind is like, "I don't wanna hear this. I don't want this to be true," or, "I do wanna hear this. I do want this to be true," somewhere below all of that, there is a steady, rooted, like almost boring sense of recognition. It's like meeting something that you already knew, but hadn't let yourself really know.

If you're newer to this, I think the practice is just to notice the difference between what these things feel like. What feels like relief versus recognition? What feels like excitement versus a quieter, less dramatic yes? I think over time you begin to feel the difference in your body. Just like with anything, it comes with practice. Your body is the instrument that you're actually reading with, and the cards are just a way to bring up something that your instrument can react to.

The other side: how we fool ourselves

Now, I'm about to make the case for the other side. Once again, paradox — the truth is that we can also be very wrong about this, and being able to see how we often fool ourselves is what separates people who use this tool well from people who don't. So I want to talk about that. Yet another layer of nuance.

Sometimes what feels like spiritual confirmation is just your projection. I've had so many people tell me over the years that, "I could intuitively feel at the deepest level that this is bound to happen," and I'm like, "I think that's just your neurosis."

Or sometimes someone has optimism that has zero basis in reality, and that optimism is only possible because they are inexperienced. I've heard lots of people say over the years, like, "From the deepest depth of my soul, I know this business idea is going to work. This is gonna be a great success." And from someone who has been in business for at least a decade, I'm sitting here thinking, "I've seen 200 people with your exact idea and your exact optimism of someone who has never done this, and I know exactly how this ends." And what you think is deep spiritual certainty is actually just kind of a chemical high that you're on from starting a new project and being in the honeymoon phase.

And the reverse happens too. I get people coming to me, coaching calls, with such deep despair, telling me with total certainty that XYZ is just not meant to work for them, and they just should give up, and they have all these spiritual reasons for why it's true. "I got a sign from the universe," blah, blah, blah. But from where I'm sitting, it's so clear they're just having a reaction to a set of events, and it has nothing to do with what's actually possible in the future. And 15 minutes into the conversation, they're crying, seeing that they haven't been giving themselves credit for all the progress they've made, and actually what they want is totally achievable.

I'm sure I've done this too. I'm sure I still do this all the time. I'm only human. So it's a very real possibility that we can look at the cards and think that they're backing up what we already believe when we're just — it's just confirmation bias in either a positive or negative direction, and we have to watch out for that.

And paradox — I don't think we'd be telling the full story if we said that it's all confirmation bias, if I said there isn't something happening at a more mysterious and ineffable level where we do actually have a line to some transcendent reality that can show us energetic patterns before they happen. I think both are true. We can fool ourselves spiritually, and we can also perceive things that we can't rationally explain. I think the real work is learning how to hold this nuance and to navigate this paradox with wisdom.

This applies to more than tarot

One more thing before I wrap up. Most of what I said in this episode is about tarot, but honestly, it applies to so many other things. If you don't read cards, maybe you have some other way of consulting something beyond your own rational mind. Maybe it's prayer. Maybe you read your own dreams. Maybe you rely just on your gut feelings. Maybe every time you get stuck, you take a long walk, and then things seem to get clearer. Maybe there's a teacher you turn to, an elder or someone, an ancestor. Or astrology, or — you know what it is.

Whatever your version of this is — consulting something outside of your own thinking mind — I think everything that I just said still applies.

Run your own diagnostic first. Don't ask the teacher, the mentor, the astrology, the oracle, the ancestor to answer questions that you're responsible for. Reframe the question to keep yourself in the driver's seat. Listen for that deep ring of recognition beyond your own psychological reactions, and put yourself to the sovereignty test.

The tool could be any tool. What matters is how you use it.

So I hope that was helpful. If you use slightly out of the ordinary tools to support your business, I hope this reminds you that you're not alone. And if you're contemplating, "Maybe I want to start playing with it," I hope this is a helpful guide and a permission slip.

I'll talk to you next week. Bye.