The Spreadsheet Said Yes. My Gut Said Maybe.
I'm a software engineer. I build things with logic. When I was weighing whether to leave my job at a mid-size tech company and launch my own product, I did what any engineer would do: I built a spreadsheet. Runway calculations, market size estimates, worst-case scenarios. The numbers said I could survive twelve months without revenue. The numbers said the market was there.
But the numbers couldn't answer the question that was actually keeping me up at night: "Am I the kind of person who can do this?" That's not a data question. That's an identity question. And spreadsheets are terrible at identity questions.
An Unlikely Source of Advice
My partner, Leah, has been into tarot for years. I'd always been the supportive-but-skeptical type. She suggested a career-focused spread one evening when I was spiraling about the decision for the hundredth time. "You've analyzed this to death with your left brain," she said. "Try letting your right brain weigh in."
She set up a six-card spread: Current Situation, Strengths, Blind Spots, What to Embrace, What to Release, and Likely Direction. I shuffled the cards myself, feeling slightly ridiculous but also genuinely curious.
The Cards on the Table
Current Situation: Eight of Pentacles. The craftsman card. Someone diligently working on their skill, producing pentacle after pentacle. That was my life exactly — heads-down, producing good work, but someone else's good work. The card wasn't negative. It was just... accurate. And its accuracy made me lean in.
Strengths: The Magician. Resourcefulness. Having all the tools on the table. The ability to manifest ideas into reality. Leah pointed out that The Magician has every suit's symbol in front of him — wand, cup, sword, pentacle — representing will, emotion, intellect, and material resources. "You have all four," she said. "The question is whether you'll use them."
Blind Spots: The Five of Pentacles. Fear of financial ruin. Two figures walking in the cold past a warm, lit window they don't seem to notice. Leah was gentle: "You're so focused on the possibility of going broke that you're not seeing the resources available to you." She was right. I had a network, marketable skills, and a partner with a stable income. The cold was largely in my head.
"The Five of Pentacles in the blind spot position was the most useful piece of advice I got from any source during the entire decision. It named my exact fear and told me I was overweighting it."
What to Embrace: The Knight of Wands. Bold action. Charging forward with passion and confidence. Not reckless — the Knight has armor — but committed. Moving with the energy of someone who has decided.
What to Release: The Hanged Man. Stop suspending yourself. Stop hanging upside down looking at the problem from every conceivable angle. At some point, analysis becomes avoidance. I'd been "deciding" for six months. The Hanged Man told me the deliberation phase was over.
Likely Direction: The Three of Pentacles. Collaboration. Skilled work recognized by others. Building something with craftsmanship alongside a team. It was the most encouraging outcome card I could have hoped for — not guaranteed success, but meaningful work done well.
The Aftermath
I gave my two weeks' notice the following Monday. Not because tarot cards told me to — but because the spread crystallized what I already knew: I had the skills, I had the resources, and the only thing holding me back was a fear of poverty that was disproportionate to my actual situation.
Fourteen months later, the startup has paying customers, a small team, and enough revenue to cover my salary. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. The Knight of Wands energy got me through the first terrifying months. And when cash gets tight, I think about that Five of Pentacles — the warm window I couldn't see — and I look around for the resources I'm probably overlooking.
Tarot didn't build my company. Hard work and a bit of luck did that. But it unstuck me at the moment when analysis paralysis had me completely frozen. Sometimes that's worth more than another spreadsheet.