My Alchemical Life
The Million Dollar Talisman
One person’s psychology of using a talisman
When my young client came to me (not yet twenty years old), he was frustrated and a bit fearful. He had been working in the tech sales market since he was 17. When he celebrated his 18th birthday, his department threw him a party. It was a red-letter day for him and for them — to have such a successful producer, barely 18.
A year later, as corporations often do, they decided to change their compensation structure, including reducing the commissions significantly. My client was the last on his team to receive the higher compensation package. They had no reason to outright fire him because he was doing so well, so they simply harrassed him until he resigned.
His confidence was sorely shaken. He had gone to a few subsequent interviews, but he felt they had not gone well, and he wasn’t called back. How to proceed, he wanted to know? How could he regain his confidence?
As we talked, he revealed that, while the sales aspect had been good to him, his true calling, he felt, was in technology itself, not in selling technology.
I told him I would prepare something for him that would assist him in receiving what he desired. He left, and I chose to create an amulet that he could carry with him unobtrusively, with correspondences that would aid him in his quest.
He came to get it, immediately slipping it into his pocket. A few days later, he had a report for me.
“My very next interview,” he said, “went extremely well, and I got the position despite not having the exact experience they were looking for.” He had landed a job with Microsoft.
He was never bullied out of a position again. In fact, when he left later companies, it was because he had a keen eye for what would launch him on the next stage of his career.
I asked him one time whether he still carried the talisman.
“No,” he responded. “I carried it to a couple of interviews but then I realized that the power was in me, not in the talisman.” But he always gives credence to that first couple of times he carried it.
“I had the talisman, and I knew it held power for me. That’s why I presented myself so differently than I had previously.
“I call it my Million Dollar Talisman because I’m now a director in the tech company for which I work, and I get paid very, very well. But I don’t forget how it all began.”
