Man, 2020. What a pile of nonsense, right? Everybody was stuck, everybody was freaking out, and my wallet looked like a ghost town. I was hitting that wall hard, just staring at the same four walls every day, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened. So, I figured, if the world is going to be this crazy, why not lean into the crazy myself?
I’m a Pisces, and I remembered seeing this ridiculous headline pop up in my feed back then: “career horoscope 2020 pisces: Your destiny revealed (Know your financial forecast today).” Normally, I’d scroll right past that total garbage. But hey, I was desperate. I was losing money faster than I was making coffee. So, I clicked it.
I read the whole thing. It was all vague talk about “unconventional paths” and “leveraging digital intuition” and “a surprise partnership mid-year.” Sounded like total fluff, just generic nonsense to keep you reading. But one phrase stuck: “The financial breakthrough will come from a seed you plant while others are distracted.”
I thought about what I could plant. My savings account was just dead weeds. I had no new skills. But I did have this one stupid idea I kept kicking around: selling custom-designed novelty hats online. Hats with really dumb slogans. It was never serious, just a laugh I had with friends. But that little phrase about planting the seed? I pushed myself.
The Messy Start and the Accidental Skill-Up
I decided to treat that horoscope like a dare. I took the last $500 I had set aside for ‘emergencies’ (my emergency was right now, anyway) and I plunged it into setting up the whole operation.
- I bought some cheap platform subscription.
- I wrestled with the design software for days, just to make five terrible-looking hat mockups.
- I fumbled through setting up a payment gateway that nobody ever used.
- I spent the next week just trying to figure out how to get my total garbage listed on Google without paying a fortune.
I was exhausted. I was frustrated. The first three months, I sold exactly two hats. One was to my mom. The other was to a buddy who felt sorry for me. I was ready to throw in the towel. This destiny thing? It was a bust. I had followed the script—planted the seed—and I got nothing but dirt.
Then, the real switch flipped. The money wasn’t coming from the hats, but from the process I had been forced to learn. While trying to make those two sales, I had accidentally taught myself how to run low-budget Facebook ads. I mastered the art of the perfect, simple product description. I figured out how to use a basic content calendar just to stay sane.
The Real Destiny (The Unconventional Path)
This is where the story gets weird and totally vindicates that bogus horoscope. My neighbor, this older dude who runs a small, local appliance repair shop, saw me on my porch one afternoon. He’d always given me this pitying look whenever I talked about my online ‘business.’
He walked over, looking totally miserable. His business was sinking because of all the lockdowns. His son, who was supposed to be managing their social media, had just ditched them. He said, “Hey, you’re always glued to that laptop trying to sell those ridiculous hats. Can you do that computer stuff for me? Just a few hours a week? I don’t know what I’m doing.”
I took a huge breath. I told him, straight-faced, a number that was ten times what I was expecting to make that month. It was a massive number for a local gig. I was waiting for him to laugh me out of his driveway. Instead, he just nodded, pulled out his checkbook, and wrote the first deposit.
Boom. That was it. That was the moment the whole career destiny thing made sense. The money didn’t come from the crazy product I created; it came from the totally unsung, frustrating, boring skill-set I developed while trying to save that product. I didn’t become a digital entrepreneur; I became a local specialist who knew how to push buttons on Facebook better than a failing fancy agency. The “surprise partnership mid-year” wasn’t some tech mogul; it was the grumpy appliance repair man next door.
From there, I took that initial success and leveraged it. I started reaching out to other local businesses—bakeries, mechanics, even a weird dog groomer. I kept my fees high because I knew I was delivering real results. I closed down the hat store (still only sold four total) but I kept the mindset. I turned that failed experiment into a legitimate, word-of-mouth consultancy.
So, yeah. I followed a trashy horoscope headline, I failed at the initial plan, but I ended up exactly where it said I would: on an unconventional, digital path with a healthy financial forecast. Funny how things turn out when you actually put in the painful groundwork, even if the reason you started was pure desperation.
