We recently connected with Afton Williams and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Afton, thanks for joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.
Naming my intuitive business after my mother has proven to be no coincidence. One of the best things that my mother ever did right was to teach me about my intuition and how to speak to God. In my youth I attended a few Baptist churches but she was never too strict about what that looked like for me. This approach allowed me to have a foundational belief system while still building my own relationship with God. My mom is highly intuitive herself and it is a practice that has been instilled into my life. My mom recently re-told me a story about her religious upbringing. She told me about how her adoptive parents were Methodist and Baptist. And as she explained it to me, that was a big “no no” back in the day. She talked about going to two different services between the two faiths each month and how it never disrupted her adoptive parents’ love for one another or their religion. This free-flowing structure has impacted my life and career greatly. It has given me a broader view of the way that God works and interacts within all of our lives. She has taught me how to trust in the voice of God and knowing that the energy that I commune with is Universal.
Afton, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a professional tarot reader and an enthusiastic student of Astrology. I started my business in the summer of 2020 on YouTube. After receiving some amazing tarot readings I strongly felt called to pick up tarot as an interest of my own. My dear cousin had gifted me with my very first tarot deck 2 years prior and in 2020 I began to learn what each card meant and how they could be applied to real life situations. As I mentioned earlier, my mother has always used her intuitive gifts to give people messages so it didn’t feel abnormal for me to lean into my own gifts and abilities. The type of paid readings that I offer on my website are time based (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour) rather than situational. I set it up this way so that as the reader, I am able to pick up on as many messages for the individual as possible. But the free readings that I offer on YouTube are more situational and psychologically focused. On YouTube I help to answer questions around your purpose, the spiritual challenges you may be facing and how to navigate the difficulties that exist within making necessary life changes. The readings that I offer are unique in the sense that you will leave them with a refreshed perspective and the faith to carry you through any new beginning. I am most proud of my persistence in building this community. It’s hard when you can see other people putting their work out there and you internalize the feeling that you aren’t doing anything different than the next person. Those same feelings have tried to keep folks from creating great bodies of work, so, I have vowed to never let those feelings win over my purpose. And this is something that I help my clients with too.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The biggest lesson I have had to unlearn is that having a large following does not always equate to having a lot of sales. I think outside of entrepreneurship that unlearning was also connected to the thought that “if I just work enough hours, I will finally have enough money to enjoy my life”, not understanding that working for someone else was already taking away from my enjoyment. In every job I’ve ever had, I have looked for creative freedom but also the ability to afford life. I never found it. But being able to create my own wealth, however long and whatever that process may look like, is more satisfying to me than having to request for my birthday off because someone else scheduled me to work. Entrepreneurship is not everyone’s preference. But for me, if I wanted my life to look a certain way I had to understand that I had to take certain paths differently. That’s why I try not to worry about the amount of people that I’m reaching because I know that I’m doing what I love. Everyday.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
My favorite sales story is about the time that, to this day, was the most money that I have ever made giving readings. I will often provide tarot services through my cousin’s esoteric herbal wellness boutique, Tea & Tarot in Connecticut. She was a vendor for an event catered to providing wellness and enjoyment for overworked and exhausted mothers, and I was one of her readers for the event. Aside from the Pride events that Heather, my cousin, has curated at Tea & Tarot, this was the largest event that I had ever done readings for. Because of this I didn’t really have many expectations. I didn’t know what to expect at all I was just so excited to be a part of something so aligned. That day I met with so many mothers and was able to provide +15 energetic readings for so many beautiful people. For anyone, that would take a lot of energy but I left feeling invigorated. I knew that I had activated a new system of faith within my purpose. It was also such a magical night because it was a Full Moon in Cancer (mothers) and we were at a resort right by the Ocean (Cancer). It will definitely be a moment within my career that I will never forget.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.aftonelizabethh.com
- Instagram: Aftonaligned
- Youtube: Monty’s Tarot Child