bücher.de has been faster before, and my medimops packages are floating somewhere in DHL-Nirvana. Well, fine. There’s still enough other stuff to do. I’m using this research break like a sponge, soaking up all sorts of unordered impulses for the card deck. From my super creepy audiobook, from the ARD (a public broadcasting network in Germany) media library, from the creative gibberish my boss spews about tiny house park concepts. And I’m using it to start the documentation. Not with the design, that comes later, when the cards actually look like something. But at least with the text.

Besides the benefit of just getting it done, this has the great advantage of helping me with the process. I use what I call accompanying writing (no idea if that’s a real term) almost every day to sort myself, and without it, I’d be lost. In my private life, it’s just scribbles on a notepad; how I feel, where I’m at, what needs to be done, what I feel like doing, what’s on my mind. Almost like writing a diary. This always brings me more clarity, more insight. From past projects, I know that writing documentations or project reports has a similar effect. Maybe even more so, because you have to formulate it so clearly that someone else understands it for evaluation purposes. And that requires you to understand it yourself. This way, you can see where the gaps are, and ideally deduce what to do next.

And as I’m writing about writing, the shipment tracking tells me the books have arrived down at reception. Finally. But before I pounce on them, I want to do something else, as objectively as possible: In the days I’ve been thinking about the card content, one important question has kept coming up. And rightly so. Who am I actually making this tarot for? And what does this person want, need, and expect? What will really help them? The persona is listed in my schedule and method plan as probably create, but somehow, in my frenzy, I completely forgot about it. Yet persona creation, just like accompanying writing, would deserve a method card in the deck based on its effectiveness. I find personas effective. When creating them and looking for a suitable photo, I learn an incredible amount about my (desired) target audience and thus about the requirements for my product.

By the way, I deliberately decided against a target audience survey. Later, I might want to do some user testing with a kind of prototype (index cards?), to uncover weak points. But now? In advance? No way. I can barely put the project into words yet – how am I supposed to ask the right questions? I still think the idea of the creativity tarot is too abstract, too unusual. Henry Ford is said to have once said that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have wished for faster horses. (That’s what he’s supposed to have said. It’s just hearsay) Without wanting to compare myself to good old Henry, I see it similarly here. If people already knew what they needed to unleash their creativity, they would probably be doing it. Then they are no longer my target audience. I think I can take away more from (quick google again) Csíkszentmihályi’s work here, and the persona is more useful at this point.

Two personas have been created. The first, the multi-creative Ann-Kathrin, has a lot of me, my clients, and people I’ve met in courses and groups. I wanted to leave it at just one, but … So I created a second one, Petra. She is more fictional but has a lot in common with people I know in real life.

Before I can create personas three, four, and five, who love all the great aspects of my world-changing tarot deck, I’m putting on the brakes. Two are more than enough if you’ve done your job properly. At some point last year, I opened Apple’s website. there was the iPhone (14?) Pro and I think it said: »Oh. So. Pro.« – I must have that. Now. They wrote that exactly for me! Recently, I got the KTM newsletter about the new Duke series. The Austrian motorcycle makers chose a slogan à la »No more Bullshit«. Yes, exactly! I immediately want to buy a second Duke – even though I don’t have time for the first one. I’d seriously love to see their persona(s) and check if I find myself in it.*

Alright. Neither Apple nor KTM conjures up personas in a one-woman show at the kitchen table, so I’ll allow Ann-Kathrin and Petra to develop further in the coming weeks. At this stage, I’m taking away the following key points:

The deck’s target audience is around mid-30s to early 50s, tending to be female. The user is self-employed or is toying with the idea of a small business. She doesn’t really trust herself to do it, mainly because she doesn’t yet understand her value and the value of her work and skills, or she lacks self-confidence. (If she has nothing to do with self-employment, that’s okay too. But I prefer to work with self-employed people, so my target audience is self-employed. And has pets. Always.)

She is creative in a broader sense, makes something and is absorbed by it. She actually doesn’t lack ideas and interests. She has too many ideas and finds it hard to decide between them, to commit – and then to focus on and implement them.

She is not closed off to the esoteric, reads her horoscope now and then, and has a diffuse interest in tarot in general. The time is not (yet) ripe for personal coaching, perhaps because so much is still too unclear for her. But she wants help because she’s stuck somewhere, somehow.

The creativity tarot helps her to ask the right questions to understand herself better. It encourages her to be herself, to trust herself more, to express herself. And it supports her in making good decisions and then focusing on and following what she has decided. Through the tarot, she learns to engage with her creativity, to appreciate it as an essential skill, and to bring it in fully – not just in creative projects, but also in big and small life questions. In her (creative) projects, the tarot, with its combination of impulses and techniques, encourages her to focus on what’s essential. By implementing this, she gradually learns what is truly important to her, why she does what she does, and what it brings to her and the world. This way, she can stand more confidently by herself and her work, and also have the long-term courage and motivation for the beginning, implementation, and completion of great projects.

This sounds coherent for now, but it’s not as sharp as I’d like it to be. I’m sending it to the shaman and the fellow student for feedback. And now it’s time to detach from the computer and get active myself. I finally need to get clear on how all this fits together. Where’s my notepad? Where are my index cards?

Ann-Kathrin Jost
36 years old, sun sign Virgo

multi-creative

part-time payroll clerk
side-hustle as a self-employed artisan for two years

currently single, no children, 2 cats

Two years ago, Ann-Kathrin fulfilled one of her biggest dreams and started a side business. This way, she has the opportunity to sell her hand-painted greeting cards, knotted bracelets, and whatever else she produces, on a proper legal basis. At some point, all friends and family just have greeting cards, bracelets, socks … So, where to put it all? And somehow, the materials have to be financed, too.

Initially, the small business ran really well, then Ann-Kathrin somehow lost her drive. Things weren’t going so well on Instagram and Etsy anymore. Why, actually? Well, luckily her 30-hour part-time job is enough, and she doesn’t need the self-employment. At least not financially. But for herself personally? What would be left of her if she no longer threw herself into her creative projects? And how fantastic would it be if she could reduce her job even further and have more time for her creativity? If she could maybe even live off it?

Ann-Kathrin has decided to really kick things off again. From an online course, she learned that she should position her business more clearly and (ouch!) not offer the whole grab bag of stuff. Deep down, she knew that. She always admired the people who have a booth at the Christmas market and sell exactly ONE thing there. And not eighty-seven different ones. How do they manage that? Or all the makers with their super successful Reels, in which they really just show how they create something …

Ann-Kathrin knows that the business itself isn’t the problem. The problem is herself. She can never really make a decision! Commit! Follow through with something properly! Stick with it! How many half-finished ideas does she have lying in a drawer? Or some almost-finished projects, creative or not, whose completion she’s been putting off for ages. She’s not really like that. If she worked like that in her job, she would have lost it a long time ago.

Ann-Kathrin has already read a lot of »guidebooks« and taken a few courses. A lot of it helped her, but some kind of knot just won’t come undone. She wants to find out what exactly is blocking her. And she wants to get rid of this block. She wants to see more clearly where the journey is going and really kick things off. On the one hand, she wants to give free rein to her creativity and, on the other, deal with it better, more disciplined. She can do all this – so why can’t she »put it together«?

On one of her Instagram sprees, she stumbles upon the creativity tarot. That sounds exciting! She hasn’t tried tarot before, but of course, she has heard a lot about it …

With the cards, she tries out various simple spreads and is immediately fascinated. The content appeals to her; she finds herself in many cards. But above all, the combination of different cards fascinates her. They are like pieces of herself that she can finally put together, here, during the reading. Some impulses are completely new to her; she might have already known a lot of it, but she wasn’t aware of it to that extent. The cards help her recognize her strengths and perceive them as such. With this self-confidence, she can now live out her creativity more freely, better, and use it more constructively!

Petra Berger
46 years old, sun sign Taurus

Florist

recently self-employed with her own shop, also a yoga teacher and dog sitter

divorced, one adult son

Petra worked for many years as a career changer in nursing and took on a new job during COVID, without night shifts, as a sales assistant in a garden centre. There, she realised what she actually wanted to do: She wanted to return to her learned profession as a florist – with her own shop!

A few months ago, the time had come, and she was able to open. The location isn’t perfect, but at least the rent is affordable. And she is finally happier, more content again. Even if things aren’t going so well with the shop right now and she should actually give up the dog sitting. Financially, it brings in too little, and it costs too much time, which she actually no longer has.

Petra is afraid that it will all get too much for her, that she can’t keep the shop, that she’ll have to look for another job again. But she can’t give up the shop! Here she can do what she loves. Here she is in her element. Recently, an acquaintance gave her the idea of offering courses. In arranging flowers, tying wreaths, and so on. Could that work? Would anyone buy that? She has the space. And she can teach – after all, she also gives yoga classes!

She probably actually needs a business coach, but financially that’s not possible right now. And she doesn’t really have anyone in her circle of friends to talk to about it. Due to years of shift work, she just didn’t get around to properly cultivating friendships.

On Instagram, Petra occasionally looks for inspiration for her flower creations and for new yoga flows. One day, she accidentally stumbles upon the creativity tarot. She wouldn’t have called herself a creative person; she can’t paint at all, and she couldn’t write a story either. But when you look at it that way … Sure, of course, it’s somehow creative to advise customers on flowers for different occasions and to put together beautiful, fitting arrangements throughout the year.

After some thought, Petra orders the cards and experiments with them in the evenings after work. It’s funny: Here, too, the impulse jumps out at her that you should pass on your skills. Could that mean she should offer courses after all? The cards give her the courage to just try it out. What can go wrong?

The more Petra deals with the cards, the more she realises that she really is creative. Not just in her shop and with yoga. She also decorates her little house. She used to do a lot of painting and crafts with her son. Hm. And in her childhood and youth, she loved to be busy with creative activities. She remembers a lot of things she had apparently completely forgotten …

Besides the realisation that she is truly creative, Petra takes away from her readings that she is allowed to take more care of herself and do what brings her joy and fulfilment. That the flow she feels while doing it is a good thing. And that she does a good job in this flow. She gradually learns to evaluate and make decisions based on this. And that probably means she will give up dog sitting and reduce her yoga hours to focus entirely on her shop. She could simply invite her favourite yoga class to a wreath-making workshop. Surely her yogis and yoginis would also enjoy that, and she could just try it out. Why not?

The personas’ fotos, which have inspired me a lot over the last two years, are from Allison Griffith (https://unsplash.com/de/@allisongmedia) and Waldemar (https://unsplash.com/de/@waldemarbrandt67w) via Unsplash.