Man, let me tell you about getting stuck. Before 2019, I was truly grinding. I mean, running full tilt on the corporate treadmill, but feeling like I was facing a permanent uphill sprint. Every financial quarter looked the same. I was pulling in decent money, sure, the bills were getting paid, but I felt like I was just moving bits of paper from one side of the desk to the other, trading hours for a paycheck without any real momentum.
I thought about quitting a million times. The energy drain was real. I was actually drawing up half-baked plans to just pack it all in, maybe start a small, niche consulting thing, which felt terrifying because it meant losing the safety net. It was late 2018 and early 2019, that whole six-month stretch was a real mess of doubt. I was just drifting without a solid, forward-looking plan, desperately seeking a way to jump the curve.
The Archaeology of My Hard Drive
So, here’s how this whole crazy thing started. Fast forward to about a year ago, maybe closer to eighteen months. I was finally cleaning up an old external hard drive, the kind you forget about until you have to move offices or houses. I was just dragging ancient, useless folders into the digital trash, hours of boring, mind-numbing housekeeping. I hit this one folder labeled ‘2019 Crap and Receipts’. I clicked it open, and there it was, a total blast from the past: an ancient, pixelated screenshot from some totally random, free astrology site. I swear I only read those things when I’m bored sick and avoiding real work.
It was the Virgo Career Horoscope for July 2019.
I stared at that image for a solid minute. The headline of the horoscope itself was some totally dramatic, cheesy nonsense about “cosmic alignment leading to financial breakthroughs and necessary separations.” Now, normally, I’d just hit the delete key and laugh it off, but something genuinely made me stop and think. I mean, July 2019. That was the exact month everything actually changed for me. I remembered feeling that weird shift, but back then, I always put it down to pure luck and sheer brute-force effort.
I decided to run a little experiment, a pure retrospective challenge. I had to know if the stars were mocking me or something. I pulled up my old work calendar, I started digging through archived emails, I accessed my client contracts folder, and I even compared it all to my banking history for that six-month period. I wanted to see if that stupid star chart had any damn clue what it was talking about. I basically created a multi-layered timeline, matching the airy astrological predictions to the gritty, real-world actions I took.
The correlation was honestly spooky. I mapped out three key predictions:
- The Prediction: “You will cut ties with a long-standing, stagnant partnership. A necessary separation for future growth.”
What actually happened: I finally mustered the courage to fire a massive client who had been paying late for a year and was constantly draining my team’s already stretched resources. I wrote the termination email on July 5th, a date now cemented in my memory. I remember the knot in my stomach. It felt like a massive risk, but I sent it anyway, and the tie was cut.
- The Prediction: “A new, unlikely collaboration from an unexpected quarter brings rapid growth in the third quarter.”
What actually happened: Two weeks after dumping that problem client, a guy I met briefly at a massive industry conference back in May reached out totally cold. I hadn’t spoken to him since. His company had just landed a huge, unexpected government contract and they needed my team’s incredibly specific expertise immediately. The initial paperwork was signed by July 28th. The speed was insane, it was sudden, and it was completely out of the blue. I truly never saw it coming.
- The Prediction: “Your recent efforts will be recognized publicly, leading to a substantial financial boon and a new level of stability.”
What actually happened: The contract I signed with this new partner was four times bigger than any single project I’d ever taken on before. Because I was no longer servicing the time-sink client, I poured all my team’s energy into the new opportunity. We delivered the initial milestone ahead of schedule, they paid the first huge check—which was the “big success” everyone later talked about—in September. Right on the money and right on the predicted third-quarter timeline.
It Wasn’t Magic, It Was Permission
I walked through all the evidence, I compared the dates and I matched the specifics. The alignment was too perfect to be purely random coincidence. I showed the whole timeline map to my wife, and she just shook her head and laughed at me. I told myself I was far too rational for this nonsense, but the details lined up too perfectly to ignore or dismiss.
I realized something incredibly important, though. It wasn’t that the stars magically made me successful. It was that the constant doubt and hesitation I was wrestling with—the fear of taking the plunge—needed a definitive catalyst. The real success wasn’t the money, it was me finally taking that risk, firing the bad client, and saying yes to the new, bigger opportunity. That’s what truly started the chain reaction that reshaped my entire career trajectory.
When I looked back at July 2019, I recalled feeling restless, antsy, and ready to snap. Maybe I read that horoscope back then, internalized it, and just forgot about it, but the seed was planted. It gave me the unconscious permission or validation to make a radical change. The stars didn’t do the work, but they might have pushed the decision I was already contemplating. I moved the actual pieces, but the cosmos, or whatever you want to call it, had already laid out the board.
What I learned from this whole weird, retrospective exercise is that sometimes you just need an outside force—whether it’s a coach, a partner, or even some silly prediction on an old website—to validate the risky, necessary move you already know deep down you need to make. The chart didn’t create the success, but it sure as hell charted the path I was finally ready to walk.
I still have that original screenshot. I keep it on my desktop now, slightly faded. Whenever I feel that old corporate grind setting in, or fear creeps back, I pull it up. It reminds me that the best breakthroughs often start with a risky, tough decision you were too scared to pull the trigger on. It’s a good little kick in the pants. It’s not about fate; it’s about action when fate gives you a subtle nod. Now I’m curious about what that site predicted for August 2019, I need to go check that old hard drive again. This whole thing opened up a new can of worms, but I’m ready to dive in.
