The Weekly Three: August 14th, 2023
When the disappointment is the thing you needed.
Welcome to The Weekly Three! Each Monday, I share a three-card Tarot spread to help you focus your intuitive energy in real life, and take action with intention inside your business.
I pull these cards with the collective energy of my community in mind, but if you want a custom spread of your very own, you can get it right here.
The Big Idea: The big, raging fire goes up in smoke (but it might be just the thing you needed.)
Sometimes in Tarot, an initial reading can prompt even more questions. This is one of those times.
There’s no way around it, there’s a letdown in these cards. So, the next question becomes: is this disappointment a bad thing, or a truth we needed to hear?
The Knight of Wands is a fire on the move. This card can indicate passion, bucketloads of energy and a “won’t stop until I get what I want” vibe, especially when it comes to creative endeavors or things that light us up.
Theresa Reed AKA The Tarot Lady has said that the suit of Wands is the one she associates most closely with entrepreneurship. I agree—to me, Wands read as the fire inside your belly that gives you the creative spark and motivation to make your dreams a reality.
In knowing how to interpret or use that spark, it helps me to think of the elements and how they work together (or don’t) inside a reading.
The element associated with the next card, the Page of Swords reversed, is air.
When I think of mixing air and fire, there are three things that can happen:
you can stoke a fire and allow it to burn brighter
you can add a little too much air and blow the fire out, or
you can add WAY too much air and we’ve got an explosion on our hands.
In this instance, I see a huffing and a puffing and a blowing down of the house.
The Page of Swords reversed can represent a lack of skills, holes in the plan, troublemakers and dubious morals. Combined with the fast-moving card before it, this feels a bit like a trap.
The final card, the VI of Wands reversed, reads as a disappointing loss or a problematic leader. It’s as if someone you placed on a pedestal fell right the fuck off once their bullshit started showing.
In Your Business: Critical thinking, context and intention take the lead.
We all look to others to show us the way at times, whether it’s to actually learn something and put it into practice or to be inspired and motivated by their journey. As entrepreneurs who are by definition blazing new trails in our industries, I think it’s important to have people you can look up to, ask questions, be inspired and motivated by.
And also, I think those people are just people, like the rest of us, and sometimes they let us down.
When I think about the times I’ve felt the most disappointed by those I look to as leaders, those I consider peers or those I welcome in as clients, it has been when I’ve completely ignored my own inner knowing.
I can hear a voice asking me to question whether it’s the best idea to trust in this situation, giving me logical reasons why I probably shouldn’t, reminding me of past similars I could compare with and yet, I do it anyway.
I can also think of times that I’ve put my faith in someone and felt blindsided by their betrayal of my trust.
And, as hard as it is to admit, I know for a fact there are times that I have let people down myself
While I think that we should all be doing our due diligence on who or what we invite into our businesses, from coaches to courses to clients alike, I think the other part of this is about using your critical thinking and knowing your own context. Knowing that you are the expert on your own life, and that while you can and will learn from many different people in many different scenarios, you can decide the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of it all.
And you can trust that you’re doing the best thing for yourself in this moment based on what you know.
Self-trust doesn’t come from blind belief in the thoughts that pop into your head. It comes from knowing yourself, your needs, your resources.
Sometimes you make a mistake in trusting someone you shouldn’t. Sometimes people show you who they are way too late in the game. Sometimes you fuck up and act in a way you might not have if you were at your best.
But the ultimate indicator of how those situations play out for each of us is what we then do with the information we’ve received from being in them in the first place:
->Who someone has shown themselves to be.
->What someone’s actions say about their understanding of themselves, you and the world at this time.
->What someone’s actions say about what they value (and what they don’t.)
->Whether you’re ok with continuing, giving the benefit of the doubt, extending a second chance (or whether that might cost you more than you are willing to give at this time.)
Who are you following in building your business? Who are your peers? And are they embodying the values and practices you want to take forward with your business?
Or do your passion, creative fire and motivation deserve to be bestowed elsewhere and employed in different ways?
A successful business is an intentional one.
Until next week,
Zoha
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About The Author:
Zoha Abbas is an Intuitive Tarot Reader, Business Coach and writer who aims to explore the small business conversations around doing business better, together, and in the grey-area of real life through data, divination and dismantling harmful systems. She is the CEO and Creator of The Ownership Method, a coaching practice where she helps fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners make change in their own businesses and beyond.
For inquiries, please email: zoha@theownershipmethod.com