Man, let me tell you about a time I thought I had everything figured out, only for a piece of cardboard to smack me in the face. It was one of those weeks where I was trying to fix a completely messed up situation at that small side project I was running. Everything was a disaster. Deadlines were missed, money was leaking out, and my head was spinning trying to figure out which throat to choke first to stop the bleeding. I mean, I was the one who had to make the hard calls, right? I was the one with the vision. I was ready to swing the biggest, sharpest sword I could find.
The Moment I Knew I Was the Problem
I remember sitting there at my kitchen table, late one Thursday night. I had been up for maybe 40 hours straight, just drowning in spreadsheets. I needed clarity. I needed a sign that the ruthless plan I had hatched—the one that involved cutting the cord on three people who weren’t performing, no matter how much they begged—was the right move. It felt awful, but necessary. Logic demanded it. Efficiency demanded it. I was ready to be the King of Swords, totally detached, making the perfect surgical cut.
So, I grabbed the deck. I didn’t bother with some fancy Celtic Cross or anything. I just did a simple three-card pull: Past, Present, Future. I shuffled them really hard, maybe too hard. I felt tense. I laid them out, face down, and then flipped the middle one first—the Present.
BAM.
There it was. The King of Swords, and it was upside down. Reversed.
That Warning I Almost Ignored
My first reaction? I cursed. Like, audibly. I figured the deck was mocking me, telling me that the situation itself was illogical or that I lacked clarity. I was trying to be smart, I was trying to be efficient, but the cards were saying I was a confused dummy. I mean, I’d read the generic stuff about the Reversed King of Swords—something about tyranny, intellectual dishonesty, or cruelty. I mentally scoffed. Cruel? I was saving the whole project! This was just smart business.
But the image stuck. The card’s figure, usually sitting high and mighty, looked like he’d been thrown off his throne and was hanging there, looking really stupid. I realized the card wasn’t talking about the mess around me; it was talking about my approach to fixing the mess. It was holding up a mirror to the ruthless plan I was about to execute.
I realized I was relying so much on cold, detached logic that I was walking straight into the big pitfall this card warns about:
- I was being an intellectual bully.
- I was using my brainpower to justify cruelty, not solve the problem.
- I was acting like a tyrant, not a leader.
Stopping the Cut Before It Bled Out
I put the cards away, but I couldn’t shake that feeling. I knew that if I went through with my original plan—the one where I just sent a cold, brutal email to those three people at midnight—I’d mess up more than I fixed. I would save a few bucks in the short term, but I would ruin morale, shatter the team structure, and create enemies who would tell everyone what a jerk I was. The ultimate King of Swords Reversed outcome: sharp words used to wound, leading to disaster.
I didn’t immediately turn into a saint, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I gave everyone a hug and a raise. But I did stop the clock. I took a full day off to completely rethink the approach. I chucked the initial plan in the digital trash.
Here’s what I did instead, directly pushing back against that reversed energy:
- I stopped trying to use the sword to cut people and decided to use it to cut the fat from the process instead.
- I scheduled individual calls with the people I was planning to fire, but instead of termination notices, I went in with specific questions about why they were struggling and what resources they lacked.
- I swallowed my pride and admitted that I, as the “visionary,” had failed to give them proper tools and instructions.
The result? One guy actually took ownership and turned things around when he realized I wasn’t just a heartless machine. The other two were eventually let go, but it was done with severance, respect, and a clear, mutually agreed-upon exit plan. It was professional, clear, and clean. It took an extra week, but nobody left spitting venom. That King of Swords, finally upright, got the job done with clarity and integrity, not just cold force.
The pitfall that reversed card showed me wasn’t about the outside world being messy. It was a warning that I was about to use my own intellect as a weapon of mass destruction, all because I was too scared or too arrogant to find a humane solution. That Tarot pull saved my dignity and my project in one quick flip
