The most successful people are not those who did great in school or achieved mastery in a given discipline. Knowledge and expertise are helpful, but they rank a distant second to the most important factor that leads to success:
Care.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
That reminder comes into focus as we start this week, as Mercury and Venus travel together from the sign of Gemini to Cancer, where they immediately form a conjunction.
The Shift from Gemini to Cancer
Mercury and Venus in Gemini both flit about like social butterflies and bees pollinating flowers, curious to taste a little of everything. Gemini is a sign where we grant ourselves freedom to explore our curiosity and pursue a myriad of ideas.
Gemini, as an air sign, is about the mind: intellectual curiosity.
Once they enter Cancer, the tone changes.
Cancer is a water sign, and it is concerned with emotion.
If Gemini is about intellectual intelligence and mental flexibility, Cancer is about cultivating emotional intelligence and flexibility: allowing ourselves to feel the myriad of emotions that might move through us, and being aware of the emotions of others.
Cancer is the place for emotional curiosity and empathy. This is a place for nurturing the soul. Whatever we do here must be done with care.
As planets transit through Cancer, they remind us that it’s ok to feel our emotions and express our emotions — even if expressing our emotions makes others uncomfortable.
Mercury and Venus Conjunction in Cancer: Cultivate and Express Empathy
Mercury is the Messenger and Venus is the planet of love and relationships.
Mercury/Venus conjunctions can be moments of sweet conversation and encouraging words.
As these planets meet up in Cancer, invites us to connect our intellect with our heart. It’s a signature of emotional intelligence and awareness.
This conjunction offers us the opportunity to consider how we cultivate empathy and how we would like to relate to people with the words we actually use.
Dumping information on someone rarely yields a positive result.
All the knowledge and expertise in the world doesn’t matter if you can’t communicate it in a way that shows you actually care.
The foundation for success is not simply to accumulate a lot of expertise, but to cultivate empathy. Your knowledge is useless if you cannot articulate it in a way that is sensitive to the needs and nervous systems of others.
In Cancer, a sign of feeling and emotions, the typical saying about the importance of caring gets a little tweak:
People don’t care how much you know until they feel how much you care.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...