Drinking from the Six of Cups
B. Earl and his Passion for Tarot
“I think the biggest thing that we have as humans is our ability to imagine something and make it real.” — B. Earl
Before I spoke to B. Earl at the suggestion of former On Fire interviewee John Bucher, who called him one of the most passionate people in the world, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.
I figured we would cover the wild range of passions he’s known for publicly: weaving superhero tales for Marvel; producing documentaries and animated series with his creative partner Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas; co-founding and curating Comic Book Sunday, the largest comic book, film, and animation community in Los Angeles; plotting blockchain marketing strategies; cooking up metaverses with companies just venturing into these new and imaginary worlds; exploring imaginative uses of artificial intelligence.
If anything, I figured that we’d discuss how, sometimes, living a life on fire may not mean the monomaniacal pursuit of one passion, but a variety of passions tied together by a larger theme.
But when Earl pulled out his Rider-Waite Smith tarot card deck, I realized this was going to be a very different kind of conversation.
“I don’t like that card, by the way,” he says after drawing the first card.
Earl brings it close to the screen so I can make out the details. The card is the Five of Swords. In it a man in medieval clothing holds three swords, a victorious yet sly look on his face. In the background, two figures retreat in defeat.
“What does it mean?” I ask. I know nothing about tarot cards.
“When it's upright, it’s this painful victory, like gain at great cost. You've won, you've got the swords, but you've also destroyed parts of yourself.” His hands swirl over his Marvel sweatshirt as he talks.
Then he pulls another card. The Six of Cups. “The cups are the joys, the blisses,” he says. “The Six of Cups connects us back to our childlike innocence. It gives us a sense of grounding and self… it reminds us to smell the flowers, so to speak.”
Swords will give us scars, he tells me, but cups will always replenish us, symbolizing our ‘grail quest’ — the journey to truly discover ourselves and bring our dreams to life.
This blend of magic and real-world action that has defined Earl since he dreamed of one day writing comics for Marvel. But even before the comics, before his Hollywood success, there was tarot. It’s the passion, I came to realize in talking to Earl, behind the passions — the root passion for a man especially on fire in all parts of his life.
Earl’s first encounter with tarot cards was when he was eleven. He and his family went to The Met Cloisters, a monastic museum connected to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. In the gift shop, he stumbled upon a Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck.
The deck, a mysterious and legendary project of two members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at the turn of the 20th Century, depicts characters from Magicians and Fools to a Hierophant and a Hermit. It’s the most popular tarot deck on the planet.
Fascinated by this find, he shelled out the twenty dollars it cost. He long had been interested in magic, and the cards felt like a magical tool he could use.
“As a kid, I dreamed of being an alchemist and a magician,” he tells me, leaning back in his chair. “I thought that I could actually create real magic.”
He loved symbols, myths, dreams, and stories behind them. And he loved the idea of creating something from nothing. But when he realized that magicians were masters of illusion, he was disappointed. Then he discovered tarot and realized it was the portal he had been looking for — a portal where dreams and reality converge.
He stepped through that portal and has never returned. He told me that at every step in life, he told me, he has asked himself one question: “How do I take this idea and make it real?”
“That’s magic as well,” he tells me. “All these things I've been learning through my journey… I really was on this sort of path of magic and wizardry. It just wasn't like I wave my hands and I'm Gandalf and conjure up rabbits. It's real magic. It’s making things happen… and it's just amazing. The biggest thing that we have as humans is our ability to imagine something and make it real.”
So how has Earl managed to stay fired up and do this over and over in his career? By taking the next tiny step forward, no matter how small — what he calls micro actions. This philosophy underpins his approach to every project, be it a documentary or a new comic series.
“At the end of the day, if you're looking to create something, you need to take micro actions in order to build the confidence to get to the macro,” he tells me. I love this, and I tell him as much: this is one of the fundamental principles underlying goal setting theory, a subject I’ve studied and applied in my years of working in both fitness and psychology. We can achieve our largest ambitions by setting more manageable next-step objectives and accepting the reality that incremental progress is the only way to realize non-incremental dreams.
For example, Earl offered, let’s say you have an idea for a documentary but don’t know how to start. Most people would see step one as writing a proposal or treatment . His suggestion? Just go out and order a camera. If you shop online, you can do the whole thing in just a few minutes.
“You ask yourself: ‘What camera should I get?’ Okay, well, there's a DSLR camera,” he says. “I can get one at Target for $300. Cool. That's step one, right?” Now you have a camera. But you don’t just stop there. To avoid becoming one of those people who lets the camera gather dust, you must force yourself to take that next action — the sooner the better.
Earl takes me through the steps. “You get a location. You get some people to interview. You set up the camera. You set up a microphone. You do your first interview.”
Do enough micro actions and you’ll start to build confidence, he tells me, and maybe more importantly, momentum. That momentum brings energy, which in turn fuels the next micro-action. Soon, the vision becomes reality.
As we talk, it becomes clear that Earl’s journey is not just a series of isolated passions and achievements. Instead, it’s a layered journey of passion upon passion, each one leading to the next like a Russian Doll — and one “root passion” for magic at the core. This journey mirrors the tarot’s Fool’s journey, a Tarot metaphor for our paths in life.
For Earl, the essence of his journey lies in action — in making magic real. In not just discovering and dreaming, but also doing.
“We can talk all day. We can make vision boards all day. We can have coffee all day and talk about all the shit that we think is cool. But the reality is if you don't go out to the ocean, you're not going to surf. It's just not going to happen. You can have all the coolest toys and tools or whatever it is, but if you don't do it, it's never going to be real.”
“And that to me is where passion has to hit the pavement,” he says, leaning forward. “Passion without pavement means nothing.”
Three takeaways from our conversation:
1. Find Your Root Passion. Like Earl's fascination with tarot, you too may have a core passion, perhaps discovered also in childhood, that sparked you early on. This passion reflects your authentic self and can provide a continuous source of inspiration and direction, even as you explore and develop other interests. Find yours! Ask people who knew you when you were young. Think back to magical experiences from childhood when you just “knew” something was for you.
2. Embrace the Power of Micro Actions. As you consider passions and dreams you’re working on now — or have thought about but not acted on — consider the micro-action you can finish within 15 minutes. Now take that action!
3. Find (or Build!) a Passion-Driven Community. Earl's involvement with Comic Book Sunday highlights the power of creating and engaging in communities that share your passions. Pursuing your passions doesn't have to be a solo journey — a community can amplify your efforts and bring greater joy and fulfillment to your endeavors.
Real magic is the inspiration that weaves all the tiny tasks together to create from the void. People usually say to me “you manifest.” And I say, “ I get s#% done, that’s all.”
And the Tarot does cut through the veil unapologetically - what a great tool to navigate the 3D with 5D intel! Uff!
Thank you for the highly resonating read!