Sarah Perl of HotHighPriestess: A Fixed Mindset Is the Only Barrier Standing Between You and Real Success

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Perl.

HotHighPriestess, sometimes known as “the girl who gives people hope”, is an intuitive tarot reader, manifestation coach and TikTok content creator. She began her TikTok in November of 2020 and has grown over a million followers ever since. Her goal is to help guide people through tarot and growth mindset. She is now the author of “From Within”, a book of poetic affirmations.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular path?

I have always been someone who has been fascinated by various perspectives and philosophies on life. While I have chosen to remain fairly agnostic for much of my life, I still loved exploring different religions and philosophical ways of living. Specifically, I loved delving into ideologies that helped empower individuals in their self growth and development. Spirituality and tarot became an interest of mine primarily due to its growing presence on social media. I loved that spiritual practices such as tarot and manifestation could be used to guide and inspire people, and it certainly helped me. I was at one of my lowest points in life, mentally, when I found spirituality and it completely shifted my mindset on life. I knew I wanted to give others this sense of hope. After falling in love with spirituality on social media, I decided one day to post a series of three videos on TikTok reading tarot cards. I never expected anything to come out of it, or for anyone to see it. But to my surprise, the videos went viral and my life completely changed as a result of this one decision. In the midst of it all, I realized the importance of mindset on success. Growing up as an immigrant with a family that struggled heavily financially, it was easy to fall into a state of hopelessness that I’d never make it out: that my destiny was predetermined. Spirituality made me realize however, that it was actually this fixed mindset, that was the only thing that was truly holding me back from success. As soon as I began having a growth mindset and manifesting the future that I have always dreamt of was when I saw my dreams come true before my eyes.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I think that our society has shifted into becoming more accepting and encouraging of the fixed mindset, that success is a formula, that only certain people are worthy of success, or that there is a single definition of success. I feel as though I’m disrupting this narrative in society by making more people realize they can adopt the mindset that will give them the ability to be successful, and that in many ways, they already are successful.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I think the funniest mistake I made was assuming no one I knew had seen my TikToks. I’d often casually talk about the guys I was seeing on TikTok because I view my community as my friends. What did I have to lose afterall, we’re talking about love in the tarot reading regardless. I quickly realized that everyone I knew actively saw the TikToks I posted — even the guys I was seeing. They’d bring it up, and I had to just accept it. Lesson learned: keep your mouth shut online about people you know in real life, even your crush.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who has been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

The entirety of the spiritual community online has been a huge inspiration and help for me along the way. Within the spiritual community we each inspire each other when making content, growing our businesses, and are there for each other as a support system. It is one of the most collaborative communities online and we each want to see each other grow and thrive. Someone who has helped and mentored me since the very beginning has been @KendallTheMedium. I am forever grateful for all the help she has given me and for the friendship that we’ve been able to create. Kendall was one of the first creators to become my friend when we were both just starting out online. A funny, yet wholesome story about Kendall and I was that she actually messaged me on TikTok first, even though she was a larger creator than me. I was fangirling because she was so inspirational and I couldn’t believe she wanted to connect with me. She wanted to collaborate and help me out even though I had less followers than her. On social media, there is often a hierarchy of power based on follower counts, but Kendall cared about so much more than that. To this day, this kind gesture has stuck with me, and as I continued to grow on TikTok I was inspired by her to do the same.

In today’s world, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Disrupting an industry or the status quo comes with many consequences, both good and bad. Within the spiritual industry, I feel as though I have helped disrupt the narrative of who or what a spiritualist looks like. Oftentimes, people associate tarot readers, witches, or spiritualists with being people who dress witchy or are hippies. Moreso, people often have negative associations with the spiritual world, and specifically tarot readers. I feel like I’m redefining that narrative. I’m making spirituality very digestible for people. I look like the girl next door, so people are able to realize spirituality or even something like witchcraft isn’t just for those with a crystal ball and a black cat. Anyone can practice these things and use it to help them in life. In fact, TikTok has made spirituality and tarot a very trendy practice now. With the help of young people showing their interests in these things and making it relatable, people have learned to love and benefit from what it is we do. Disrupting the industry, in my case, was making spirituality more acceptable through the use of social media and my image. But it comes with a cost. Many people who may not look like me can become silenced and not receive the same recognition. Additionally, now that spirituality has become a trend, it comes at the cost of people overlooking much of the culture tied to the practices, and being aware of these sorts of things. It has its pros and cons, but this is very much a developing thing, and I’m hoping for a positive and knowledgeable future in spirituality.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“All engagement is good engagement” is the first that comes to mind. While the vast majority of feedback I receive online as a content creator is positive, there are obviously times where the algorithm will send my videos to the wrong crowd and it can feel like a nightmare. The anxiety of people sending hate is hard to describe. But it is something I’ve learned to deal with and in a way, learned to view it positively. Some of my creator friends have told me that all engagement is good engagement. In essence, the goal of being an online creator is to reach an audience, and even when the wrong audience is reached, it is an audience nonetheless. The hateful comments may push my content to a person who enjoys the video, who needs to hear it, and that’s the goal. So regardless of the hate, it is engagement and engagement is good.

“The only thing that can stop you is yourself” is another piece of advice I took to heart when taking on this journey. It may sound cliche, but truly, I realized it really was only me who stood in the way of my wildest dreams. If I believed in myself, it made the journey so much easier and more feasible. In fact, I realized it is us that gives meaning to obstacles. What may seem like an obstacle is an easy hurtle to another. Therefore, it is only you that can limit the possibilities — anything is possible is what I quickly realized! The last person who should stop you is yourself. You need to be your own biggest cheerleader. This was advice I adopted into my life and advice I now give to others.

“What if it all works out?” was a question I was told by some in the spiritual community. It’s a complete perspective shift. What if it does all work out? We spend most of our time thinking about the negatives and everything that could go wrong, but if we spent more time thinking about what could go right, we’d open the door to some incredible possibilities.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I hope to eventually reach an audience outside of the spiritual niche and to explore the self-help and self-development niche. I am very fascinated by the study of psychology and would love to incorporate it into what I do and how I help people. I hope to eventually become a motivational speaker, write another book, expand more on other social media platforms, and continue helping those who need guidance.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

The Power of Now was a book that really inspired me. The author, Ekhart Tolle, teaches to live in the moment, and that the now is all there is and all there ever was or will be. It inspired me to adopt this mentality and I began encouraging my viewers to as well. I think that coming from humble beginnings has instilled some harmful ways of thinking in me, especially on the subject of money. I realized that as I became more successful, I became more fearful because I had a feeling that I would lose it all. Looking back now, I understand that this mindset came from a place of trauma and my upbringing. In fact, by hyper fixating on this hypothetical reality, I made myself more likely to let it into my life. After reading the power of now, I realized the importance of thinking about the only moment to exist: the now, and to stop hyper fixating on the future and to enjoy the success I have had thus far. Oftentimes, we find ourselves living for the future in the hopes that we will enjoy a now that has yet to exist, but we must also enjoy the now that is guaranteed to us. I think this mindset helped propel my happiness and also my entrepreneurial spirit.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I have a huge huge passion for creating education equality. Reforming the education system has always been my main passion and career aspiration. While what I do at the moment may seem irrelevant to this, I feel as though the two are inherently interconnected. It was actually learning about the theory of growth mindset in students that helped introduce me to the idea of manifestation in spirituality, they’re largely connected. Studies show students are far more likely to succeed in a classroom if they have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, similar to how believing in the possibility of your dreams coming true while manifesting helps attract that energy to you. Having attended underprivileged schools growing up, I realized that what was largely lacking in these schools was instilling this value, the growth mindset, in students. So often, being in an environment like this can cause a student to believe that they can not achieve their dreams. While they may be at a disadvantage, I believe shifting student mindsets is the first step to helping alleviate the inequity in the education system. Down the line, I hope to use my platform to spread awareness for education inequality and create resources for underprivileged students in every capacity. Education reform, no matter where my career takes me, will always be a movement I will stand by and support.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorite quotes has always been “I don’t think there is any truth. There are only points of view” by Allen Ginsberg. Time and time again in my life I realize we each experience the world so differently. From a neurological, psychological and even spiritual perspective, this makes sense. Our environment and experiences shape the way we live and perceive our lives. Even something that may seem so non-negotiable can vary from person to person (as we saw in pop culture with the dress color dilemma). If something like color can vary so much from person to person, then can you imagine how much our perceptions of life vary? There really is no truth, only our individual perspectives on every situation. This quote teaches us to be more empathetic and understanding of everyone we come across in life.

Where can our audience keep up with you?

My TikTok, Instagram and YouTube is just @HotHighPriestess. My Twitter is @HHPriestess. You can check out my book of poetic affirmations on Amazon called From Within, and I just started a podcast called The Priestess Perspective. Thank you so much for having me!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!