It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting
Or What I learned from reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
I finally got around to reading The Alchemist over the (Australian) summer. And by that, I mean actually ‘reading’ it! I also have the Audible version and can’t wait to listen to Jeremy Irons narrate for two hours! Although, I’ll struggle not to think of Scar from The Lion King as my narrator! I have boiled it down to seven quotes which meant the most to me as I read it, with the first one being the title to this article.
‘It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.’
What is life without dreams? Not just dreams, but dreams that have the possibility of coming true. This was the motivating factor for me to start my entrepreneurial move at 41, when a dream materialised, became possible thanks to advances in technology, and now I and my business partner are chasing that dream as hard as we can. And let me tell you, our lives haven’t been this interesting in a long time! We are loving the journey, and are extremely grateful for all the new contacts that have come into, and enhanced, our lives as a result.
‘(Everyone understands) the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as a part of a search for something believed in and desired’
This quote encapsulates what being an entrepreneur is all about. Starting with an idea, getting enthusiastic about what it can become, and then turning that idea into a reality because you ‘love’ it and you know it is your ‘purpose’ to achieve it. I read that getting people to join your startup company is driven by how enthusiastic YOU are about the company, and then that enthusiasm flows through the rest of the employees. Success is unable to be obtained if you aren’t truly in love with what you are doing and thus doing your work (whatever it is) enthusiastically. This is no more evident than looking at what I achieved in my corporate life vs what I am currently achieving in my own business.
‘When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it’
These thirteen words seem to sum up the whole meaning behind the book. Throughout the book, there is the message of the “Personal Legend”, whereby if you are able to find your true calling, and have the inner strength to try to chase that calling, then all the universe will conspire to help you achieve it. As I wrote in my other article, What Makes a Perfect Co-Founder? Shared Values: “Sometimes the world lays everything out in front of you, but we’re just too stupid, scared, or afraid to see it, and we miss the hints and opportunities.”
It’s easy to miss the ‘clues’ that the universe gives you to help you reach your Personal Legend, especially when they appear (on the surface) to be road-blocks and wrong turns. But it is only with the wisdom of hindsight that we realise they were put there for a reason to test us, to help us to grow, and to prepare us for the bigger, better future that we are looking for.
‘When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he never dreamed of when he first made the decision.’
There is definitely no quote I have read that sums up my life better since I made the decision to leave corporate life and pursue my dream. Having been ‘brainwashed’ into a certain way of thinking and leading my life, I did not imagine all of the things that I would get involved in, be a part of, and learn about when I quit my safe job. Even more important is trusting in the process (ie. the current) such that I am learning all the time, being grateful for the experiences I am a part of, and trusting that the universe is conspiring to help me achieve my goal of launching a successful software platform designed to improve all aspects of the Retirement Living Industry.
‘If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.’
This quote touched me because it talks about something different from the entrepreneurial journey, but something that I am also working on improving: mindfulness. Part of accepting our life (both the good and the bad) is to pay attention to the present, and to do our best to neither dwell on past events nor worry about potential future events. It’s very easy to either look at what negatively happened in the past or project a negative future outcome, and use that as fuel for our decisions in the present. I know that we need to LEARN from the past, and use that as a guide for present decisions, but only as long as they are productive and positive decisions that will positively impact on the present. What’s great about this quote is that it is simply saying that if we focus on the present, and make decisions that will improve our present, then it will automatically improve our future. The key here, however, is not that we should make short-sighted or materialistic decisions (ie. go out and buy a new car or new clothes). These things, whilst you think they are making you feel better, will only make you feel worse in the longer run, and the future will actually be worse than the present, especially if you weren’t able to afford those things to start with. Making decisions that will genuinely (and fundamentally) positively affect your present is hard to do, especially because you might think they aren’t helping at all. However, if you trust in the process and are clear about your Personal Legend, your future will always be better as a result of your choices today.
‘People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.’
There is a strong connection between this quote and the next one below. In the book, Santiago meets a man who had a Personal Legend, but his fear of being unable to achieve it stopped him from chasing it. Africa’s First Woman President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was quoted as saying, “The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them.” The flip-side of having a dream is that often you feel that you don’t deserve to achieve the dream because it is so big. Self-doubt is the biggest limiting factor facing civilisation today, with us constantly being told we aren’t good enough. We are shown images of “perfect” celebrities leading “perfect” lives, and we all idolise them and say to ourselves: they are perfect, I will never be like them, I will never lead the perfect life. And often, if something good does come along, we destroy it with our negative innermost dominating thoughts of how we aren’t good enough, and we don’t deserve success and happiness. Thus we continue living just at that point of being ‘okay’, without ever being able to lift ourselves up to living a ‘great’ life.
‘There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.’
The connection between this quote and the one above is clear. Here Paulo is talking about the second half of the previous quote (feeling that you are unable to achieve a dream). I think it is more than that, because your dream will be impossible to achieve if you are afraid of it full stop. Fear of failure is just as damaging to achieving your dream as fear of success is. Fear of success is just another way of explaining the first part of the previous quote (feeling like you don’t deserve to achieve your dream). Since finishing The Alchemist, I have started listening to a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. In it, she talks about how having fear is okay (which I completely agree with), but we must learn to move beyond it and take action. I think feeling fear is important, because without fear we are simply staying within our comfort zone and thus not growing. We grow as people when we face things that we fear and manage to overcome them.
This is really important to me and my family, especially now. My 12-year-old son is starting on a big journey this year as he heads towards his Barmitzvah, and we have already talked about how he will be facing a lot of situations that he won’t be comfortable with, and probably won’t like. However, he will need to face these situations to help him to grow and develop during the year, and I am confident he will come out of it a much stronger, wiser, happier kid, knowing how many things he was able to conquer during the year.
For me, my biggest fear has always been overcoming my shyness and inability to talk to people properly. I am constantly working on it, and I don’t think I will ever be ‘comfortable’ to just walk up to a stranger and talk to them. However, if I am able to contain the fear, and (in the words of Mel Robbins) 5–4–3–2–1 it, I know I will continue to grow and improve.
What were your takeaways from the book when you read it? And if you haven’t read it yet, I hope this inspires you to read it!
