By Jo Madnani
If resilience was a tarot card, the Nine of Wands would fit nicely. In an upright position it means grit done right; reversed it means exhaustion and fatigue. It also reflects my lived reality as a first-generation immigrant. I have built a career across continents, straddling the corporate, entrepreneurial, and agency worlds (I am currently consulting and living the author life). Twenty years of living between worlds will teach you a thing or two about being resilient.
Let’s explore the imagery of the card from a classic deck: A traveler holding a staff, slightly leaning on it, with a bandage around his head indicating hurt after a fight. Research showed me that the background — eight widely spaced wands standing against a mountain range before a cautiously happy blue sky — symbolize challenges that have been overcome.
Let me take you on a journey as the weary but hopeful traveler would in this card.
Unlike my father, I migrated voluntarily. It was shaped by the post-colonial 1947 Partition granted independence to the subcontinent known as India, but only after cleaving it in two. His family left Sindh, now Pakistan, to resettle in India; but they stayed true to their beliefs. He grew up in post-colonialism’s shadow, watching his parents rebuild from nothing. He barely finished high school and never had the opportunity to go to college. By his twenties, he had started his own business, holding tradition and innovation simultaneously without ever calling it a skill. He saw people for who they were and who they could become.
He died when I was fourteen. I didn’t understand what I was losing. He carried more than anyone knew. The weight of a displaced family, a business built from nothing, a life held together by quiet will.
It took my own displacement to understand what I had inherited from him. I moved countries in my early twenties, trailing my spouse’s career. When life led us from India to Florida, I arrived with no map, no network, and no blueprint of my own— just a blank page and the belief that I would figure it out. The move demanded resilience in its highest form, a fiery, gritty energy that helped me find work, build a semblance of community, and find the courage to start a family.
