Man, I was stuck. Really stuck. For about eight months, I felt like I was running on a treadmill set to ‘slow jog’ while everyone else was sprinting past me, getting promotions and bagging huge deals. I’d poured everything I had into that big Q3 product launch, only to watch it completely stall out because the marketing team dropped the ball. I was furious, tired, and honestly, starting to think maybe the universe just didn’t want me to succeed.
I needed a breakthrough, but I had exhausted all the logical routes. I’d updated my resume, networked until my throat was dry, and spent hundreds on productivity courses that just gave me more homework. So, in a moment of utter desperation—the kind of desperation you feel at 3 AM scrolling through nonsense—I decided to try something completely ridiculous. I decided to check my damn horoscope, specifically focused on career lift-off. Yeah, I know. I still laugh about it.
I punched in “Pisces career prediction Anupam Kapil” into the search bar. Why him? Because his face popped up first, talking very earnestly about Saturn transits. I watched his video. I didn’t just watch it; I meticulously transcribed the key points related to my sign for that specific week. This was my new ‘practice’—treating astrology like a highly subjective, highly questionable business forecast.
The Practice: Translating Cosmic Energy into Action Items
The prediction for that week was specific, which surprised me. Most horoscopes are fluffy garbage, but this one actually laid out a few clear markers. I wrote them down in my notebook. This is what I captured and how I framed them:
- Prediction 1 (The Warning): “Mars’ influence means conflict with authority figures is high. Step carefully, or you will regret a rushed decision.”
- My Action Item: Shut up during the Monday morning strategy meeting. Don’t volunteer opinions unless directly asked. Keep my head low, specifically around the VP, Mark, who is always looking for a fight.
- Prediction 2 (The Opportunity): “Jupiter’s trine suggests a financial uplift tied to past endeavors or old contacts. Look backward, not forward, for this week’s success.”
- My Action Item: Dig through LinkedIn and my old email contacts. Message three people I haven’t talked to in two years—specifically the ones who respected my work before I joined my current dead-end job.
- Prediction 3 (The Work Ethic): “Avoid laziness regarding documentation. Diligence in small tasks will save you from a major blunder later in the week.”
- My Action Item: Instead of blowing off the weekly project summary, I’m going to triple-check the expense reports and make sure every single meeting note is filed correctly.
I committed to executing these three ridiculous directives. The moment I started, it didn’t feel like I was following a star sign; it felt like I had generated a bizarre, highly focused self-improvement plan. I treated the predictions like constraints, and constraints often breed creativity.
The Unexpected Payoff: When the Stars Aligned (Or Did They?)
Monday was excruciating. Mark, the VP, spent twenty minutes ranting about the Q3 numbers, demanding explanations. I sat there, biting my tongue so hard I tasted blood, just following Prediction 1. Several colleagues jumped in, got torn apart, and ended up with extra assignments. I walked away clean.
Tuesday, I dredged up my contact list. I sent brief, highly professional messages to three former colleagues. One was totally unresponsive. The second gave me a polite brush-off. The third, Sarah, who runs her own consulting firm now, immediately responded. She mentioned needing someone with my exact experience for a high-value, six-week contract. It was out-of-the-blue money, exactly related to a “past endeavor.”
I spent Wednesday and Thursday obsessing over documentation (Prediction 3). I found a $4,000 mistake in the travel expenditures that nobody else had caught. When my manager asked for the report on Thursday afternoon, I handed over a pristine document that highlighted the saving I found. He was floored. He immediately took me aside and said, “This is the attention to detail we need. You just saved us a headache.”
Friday, Sarah and I finalized the contract. It was enough money to completely cover my rent for three months and gave me the confidence boost I desperately needed. That weekend, I sat down and reviewed the whole week. The career didn’t “take off” in the sense of a promotion at my current company, but a massive new opportunity, a financial life raft, definitely appeared.
The real takeaway wasn’t that Anupam Kapil is a prophet. The realization I hammered home was that the horoscope forced me to change my behavior. It mandated discipline and communication I was too cynical to try otherwise. It told me to look backward for success, so I messaged old contacts. It told me to avoid conflict, so I avoided a career-killing argument. I didn’t get lucky; I got a weird list of tasks that forced me to be productive in areas I was neglecting.
Did my career take off this week? Yeah, maybe it did. But it wasn’t the stars that lifted me; it was the fact that I stopped waiting for a sign and started executing a slightly insane plan based on one.
