Meet Amanda Hornberger

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amanda Hornberger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amanda below.

Amanda, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

I’ve always been an optimistic person by nature. But nothing tested that attitude more than when I lost all my work and my apartment during the pandemic in 2020.

Because I was a gigging musician, theatre performer, and tarot card reader at the time of the shutdowns, I lost everything overnight. My work depended on people gathering in large groups. Suddenly, I found myself at the end of my lease with nowhere to go. I was living in Orlando, FL, at the time and because I had been an independent contractor, it took months for any type of relief payment to come through. I became seriously depressed.

I didn’t see much hope on the horizon but a friend of mine dragged me to a job interview at the Hotel Cassadaga and I ended up getting a job at the 11th hour. Someone from the hotel knew of a houseboat that was gutted and needed renovating. She said I could buy it and she and her boyfriend would help me fix it up. I had never really renovated anything before but here I was with no other choice.

This was the hardest time of my life. So much went wrong. My composting toilet was delayed in arriving and I had to go to the bathroom in a bucket for 2 weeks. The people who said they were helping me took advantage of me instead. I was almost an hour’s drive away from anyone I knew.

At the same time, I met my now partner through a friend who organized a weekly friends game night over Zoom.

I also learned to have a deeper amount of empathy for others and I grew as a person more than I could have imagined.

This experience is a clear before and after for me. I will never be the same person. But I am optimistic because I can see that even during this most difficult time of my life, I was helped, protected, and guided as if by some unseen force.

Friends and strangers alike helped me when I didn’t feel like I could help myself. When the world was falling apart, certain things were also falling together.

I’m happy to say that after almost 4 years of not being able to do what I love to do, I got a message out of the blue from a friend from college I hadn’t seen in 10 years. He invited me to audition for Diana: The Musical and I ended up playing Princess Diana in the national regional premiere of this show! You just can’t make this stuff up.

My life has taken many unexpected turns but I am optimistic through it because I have seen that the Universe is conspiring to bring my dreams to me.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

It took years after the pandemic to find my footing again professionally. I am still a theatre performer and singer/songwriter. I will always be a creative at heart.

In 2023, I pivoted my tarot reading business to focus on the behind-the-scenes part of spiritual entrepreneurship. I studied copywriting and marketing strategy and I am so excited to share my business Queen of Swords Copywriting with the world!

I write marketing materials for spiritual entrepreneurs and conscious businesses but my most recent offering puts the power back into the hands of the business owners. So many people are amazing at what they do but don’t know how to market it. My online course tries to help with this problem.

On-Point Promotion: Marketing and Copywriting 101 for Spiritual Entrepreneurs helps you build the foundation of your marketing plan so you can reach soulmate clients. You can find out more information at this link: www.queenofswordscopy.com/onpoint-promotion

If you’re interested in my music, you can find my latest album “Something Ventured” here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/something-ventured-ep/1659171045

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I would have to say patience, grit, and compassion.

Patience is one of the hardest things to learn but it is, in my opinion, the most important. If you can pause and be patient, you give yourself a chance to see the truth of a situation instead of reacting on impulse. All of the best things in life take time. You can practice patience through breathing or meditation practices. I also use intention setting and prayer. It’s easier to have patience when you feel like you can hand your problems to a Higher Power to solve. Take the steps and do your part but try to surrender the outcome to something bigger.

Grit and determination go hand-in-hand. When you’ve decided you are going to do a thing, then decide that nothing can stop you. This attitude has helped me in times when I feel insecure or unsure. Sometimes, you have to decide it’s going to work because it has to — this can have surprising results. You can develop grit by regularly putting yourself in situations that are outside of or stretch your comfort zone. You learn that you can rely on yourself that way.

Compassion is the quality that makes way for deep connections. The fact is that we, as humans, need each other — whether we want to admit it or not. Practicing compassion opens up curiosity about the other person or people. It leaves room for people to surprise you. I believe that compassion can heal the world. Where would I be if I didn’t have the help that resulted from the compassion of others? Compassion, like patience, is found in the pause. You must take a moment, step back, and put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Ask questions and get curious before assuming the reason someone is behaving a certain way. Slowing down and being present in the moment instead of reacting from a past experience can shift relationships completely.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown was one of the most important books I ever read. Her research on vulnerability is eye-opening in a world that wants us to keep up appearances of perfection and achievement.

There is a section at the beginning of the book that uses the Arena as a metaphor. I won’t do it justice here but I’ll try. Essentially, she paints the picture of an arena like what would have been used by gladiators in Roman times. Imagine yourself as the gladiator in the arena fighting for your life. You look up at the stands and all the people are jeering, cheering, sneering, and everything in between. Everyone has an opinion. But none of the people in the stands watching are in the arena.

Brené says not to take advice from those who are not in the arena.

This is life-changing advice.

The people who have not made themselves vulnerable enough to fight the good fight — to try for the big dream — are not the ones you should listen to if you want to build a creative, growth-filled, beautiful life.

It’s like the quote they attribute to Marilyn Monroe, “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

I know for certain that my life will not be boring.

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