Pisces Astrology Career Profile

Top Careers

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Pisces

February 21 - March 20

By Jane Hodges

Pisces, ruled by intuitive and reflective Neptune, crave inspiration, emotion, and an outlet for the imagination.

Top Career Programs for Pisces

What Motivates Pisces

Pisces natives are blessed and cursed by their own sensitivity to what is happening around them. They soak up the collective energy in any environment, and alternately offer positive and healing emotions to change negative energy or slink off for restorative solitude to protect against emotional harm.

Faith and Illusion

Pisces folks govern—and are governed by—faith and illusion. They need to believe in what they are doing and in humanity, and sometimes they slip on rose-colored glasses to make that happen. At other times, they take a harsh look at reality and feel despondent. Then they repeat the cycle.

At their best, Pisces are visionaries who can see not just what's there, but what's possible around the bend. These folks operate on an empathetic and emotional level, often unconsciously, and they can generate ideas or scenarios that plug right into the public's gestalt or that presciently portend future trends.

Pisces alternately lose themselves in their projects, working like proverbial artists who forget to eat and sleep, or come up with brilliant visions but procrastinate on executing them due to doubts about their own abundant abilities. Pisces folks are often modest and seem like "old souls" who can't get too attached to what's happening in the here and now.

Yet, when they work with the right partners, theirs is a unique genius. Motivated by providing service, Pisces folks won't hog credit for their contributions. The Pisces willingness to extend belief or unconditional love to even those who disappoint them is part of their makeup.

Creating Spaces, Internally and Externally

Pisces folks are expert at setting moods and creating environments, both permanently (in their home or office) and for a living. They want to feel good and to create a positive feeling for others. Their empathy makes it possible for them to create a positive emotional environment for healing, as in a therapy office, or to work in image-related professions, such as graphics and graphic design, fashion merchandising, interior decorating, feng shui, architecture, in museums and landscaping, or in the film or TV industry. Their ability to blend abstract and cerebral knowledge with their gut instincts also lends them success in business as economists, forecasters or professors.

Pisceans have a gentle, approachable energy. They hesitate to hurt others, though their dramatic emotions may lead them to tears. These folks wear their hearts on their sleeves, and it's easy to know when they need your company and when they want solo time for reflection. Private time and relaxing rituals are important to these folks, and they dislike feeling unduly rushed or treated abrasively.

Pisces will always provide hard work, but they may need a wide berth and plenty of appreciation to get it accomplished. They are compassionate to others and bring that empathy and intuition—as well as their yoga mat and lots of herbal tea—to any professional endeavor.

How to Spot a Pisces at Work

Pisces career manual: I'm OK—You're OK
Colors: Shimmering colors, such as turquoise or grey silk
Pisces success symbol: Art made by their kids or artist friends
Spare time pursuits: Film, theater, art museum membership

Pisces in Action

Pisces Johnny Cash exemplifies his sign's professional persona. Born of modest means and with a modest personality, the wildly popular country-rock singer suffered from tremendous guilt about his own importance and his role in his brother's accidental death.

He struggled to launch his music career, while fighting subconscious demons and emotional turmoil that led him into escapism—a Pisces downfall—and alcohol and drug addiction. But, as with many a Pisces, in his darkest hours he found a way out of the mess through the inspiration of love—and he married June Carter, a fellow musician.

Many of Cash's musical hits touch on universal human feelings of remorse or upset, and they often communicate empathy. Cash's live recording of the song "Folsom Prison Blues" at that actual prison captures the enthusiasm and connection he forged with his captive audience, and the song's story—a ballad about a prisoner's awareness of what he's given up while in jail—touches on the idea that we all are in prisons of our own making. Many of his other songs were pure hits, providing entertainment, escape and good-time feelings for listeners.

Marriage of Abstraction and Intuition

Pisces folks often lead large and complex businesses where their marriage of abstract and intuitive serves them well. These folks do particularly well in manufacturing, where predicting the market is important lest overproduction of inventory lead to losses. Automotive titan Carlos Ghosn, Nike's Phil Knight, computing's Michael Dell and Steve Jobs, and Archer Daniels Midland's Patricia Woertz are all Pisces, as is international media executive Rupert Murdoch. Former treasury guru Alan Greenspan moved markets with his economic forecasts, while genius Albert Einstein was also born under this sign.

Pisces folks really shine in arts such as graphic design, and they feel quite at home in a community of like-minded artists who spend most of their time living in the imaginary. Neptune governs film and images, and many directors (Robert Altman, Ron Howard, Spike Lee, Rob Reiner) and photographers (Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus) are Pisces, as are visual artists (Michelangelo, Piet Mondrian). Pisces can also use words to illustrate, as do many successful playwrights (Edward Albee, Bertolt Brecht) and fiction writers (Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth).

Inspired and Inspirational

Known as "bleeding hearts" by some (Ralph Nader), this sign nonetheless can move people and provide them with inspiration (Tammy Faye Bakker, Tony Robbins, Jimmy Swaggart), which means that work in coaching or even as a spiritual leader fits.

It's effortless for this sign to work with children because youngsters appreciate the willingness of the grown-up Pisces—such as Mr. Rogers and Dr. Seuss—to live in his dreams. As performers, Pisces are quick with a tear (Drew Barrymore, Liz Taylor) but also have a warm and mutable energy (Queen Latifah, Billy Crystal, Lili Taylor, Aaron Eckhart). As with Johnny Cash, many Pisces natives are transformed—for better or worse—by participating in drug culture and battling depression (Billy Corgan, Kurt Cobain, Lou Reed). But Pisces folks always learn from what happens to them in their lowest depths, and their darkest behaviors arm them to empathize with others who need their understanding.