The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo
One-Sentence Summary:
A fictional tale that masterfully incorporates various mental models on the singular focus of embarking on the journey to live a life of purpose.
Rating On Time Of Review:
Greater than 8 out of 10. Upon revisiting the book and my notes a year after first reading it, I found it still to be incredibly valuable. I think it would especially be valuable for someone who is already embarking on their journey to live a life of purpose. One already needs to be convinced.
Book notes below. My thoughts are in italics. Opinions are mine during the time of review.
Date Reviewed: June 22, 2020
Part One
The main character of the book is a boy named Santiago. One can say the point of the book is to follow the adventures of a boy seeking his “Personal Legend”. One explained in the book as: “It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, know what their Personal Legend is.” / Many exercises/books/quotes/etc… ask the reader to focus on the past. To the moments of childhood when they were limited by the influence of external standards. Before their creativity was shunned by social pressures and dreams crushed as unrealistic by the jaded. Once again, reaching back to the past to think of what intrigues an individual can be the starting point of digging into factors that truly drive oneself.
“In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own Personal Legends.” / Becoming influenced by extrinsic rewards/standards that will inevitably attack you.
On resiliency. A story of a miner is shared. One who spends 5 years smashing stones in search of an emerald. How when the miner is on the cusp of quitting after being disheartened and tired of smashing hundreds of thousands of stones that in the final stone the miner throws in frustration the emerald is found. There are many such parables and the “final email, the last job application, the last pitch” is a story I’ve heard many times from my own interviews and listening to others. A thought I have is well… what if you are willing to push for longer than another person? Now, there is no guarantee that doing something for 1 year will result in a break. Sometimes it will take 5 or even 10 years. In one way, one can think that its unfortunate that the person who does it for 10 years has such a high pain tolerance… but maybe it’s also the “Lindy effect”… where if you chug on for 10 years and you finally receive a break after that, you’ve built on so much callus from your hard work that you will be able to go longer than those who caught a break faster. As my mother says, when you get rich fast it leaves fast.
**Many people will choose to not make decisions. Whether it be a fear of responsibility, accountability or what have you. They may just not want to be accountable to themselves for what they do. And that may be because they’re always so fixated on judging their past. Much of the world is filled with people who will pay to let others make decisions for them. To relinquish control. It’s hard to make decisions for yourself but having a purpose makes it easier. Having others make decisions for you is like the inability to sit still because you are afraid to become conscious of what you actually think of yourself and life. Making decisions for yourself is embracing this.
Reframe. Santiago gets robbed in a new city he ventures to in seeking his Personal Legend and treasure. He learns to change his mind where he no longer considers himself a victim of a strange land but an adventurer in a new land. Reframe.
Part Two
In the new land, Santiago meets various people and in one encounter with an old man, the old man says: “You have been a real blessing to me. Today, I understand something I didn’t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so.”/ The pessimists will say this is why ignorance is bliss. But I think the true moral is the value of expanding ideas and perspectives for people so that they cannot ignore what is possible. So that they cannot ignore the decisions they are making by sheer neglect to become better individuals. This is another important value of sharing work but also constantly exploring.
**The boy worked in the new land for a year. He worked in the crystal shop and earned money. Enough to be able to return to his hometown to buy a flock of sheep and go back to his original of being a shepherd. Something he knew how to do. The adventure scared him and he was meeting resistance from people who discouraged his venture and those who failed and had given up. But when he left the town to return home to buy sheep, he realized the year spend working for a dream of becoming a shepherd again was no longer his dream and he starts to despair his choice. This so accurately shows the feeling of losing to resistance and the thoughts of accepting defeat. It’s how I felt applying to finance jobs a year into my journey. Because its scary and you don’t know if you’ll succeed and you don’t even know what the future holds. But its the same feeling of despair that reminds you that going back is an option but one that you do not wish to take. The boy realizes this and decides to continue on his journey in search of his Personal Legend.
“We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”
**“.. I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and the tribsemen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.” / This is what the camel driver told Santiago while the caravan was moving through the desert while there was news of tribal wars nearby, The thought here is that many emphasize the need to be present. And some say that means ignoring the future so that’s not a good idea. But when I think about people who YOLO… and if I even think about many decisions I make…. They are mostly always future seeking. You make decisions now in the hopes of some promise to happen in the future. You study, go to school, get some kind of job all for a belief on some kind of thing happening to you in the future. Not because you enjoy the present. Truly enjoying the present. Even those that YOLO (i.e. not giving a shit and living life without a care on a beach) are not truly present because they don’t have any idea what they actually want. They are relying on the past for reflection of what joy is supposed to be and they are more likely relying on future reactions of what they do now in living such a lifestyle. Being truly present means being in-tune with the future but focusing on what you are spending your time on each day while not obsessing over what the past indicates of the present and what the future may hold.
**Santiago is part of the caravan because he is in search for the treasure that is part of his Personal Legend. He was told by a wise man that it will be by the pyramids. An idea that the wise man/king shared with the boy was that when one goes on the search for his Personal Legend, that the universe conspires to make it happen. One way is with a quick success. Something called beginner’s luck to give an indication that this is an awesome journey and to give encouragement. But, as one gets further along in the journey, it doesn’t get easier. In fact, it gets harder at times. This reminds me of Scott Belsky’s Messy Middle and Seth Godin’s The Dip. They speak about the similar turns in the adventure of life. The key here isn’t just resilience but also patience. It’ll be time when it’s time. All you can do is continue on.
“It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the Master Work. Now, I’m beginning what I could have started ten yeas ago. But I’m happy at least that I didn’t wait twenty years.” / This is what the Englishman said to Santiago. The Englishman traveled with the boy on the caravan. He was seeking his own Personal Legend. To meet the alchemist who could teach him how to turn lead into gold. But upon meeting the alchemist, he asked the Englishman if he had even tried and the Englishman said he hadn’t and he wanted to learn how to from the alchemist. It’s the idea of not to seek permission. To not ask for an opportunity unless you’ve actually gone out to do the work in some part. The 10 years of studying and searching led to the master telling the Englishman to do the work on his own and figure it out. It might seem foolish at first glance but this is all part of the journey and sometimes it takes a long period of obsession and a little nudge to push the fear aside and try to do the work on your own. The positive reframe is that he started sooner rather than later. But the bigger lesson is to find ways of doing the work you aspire to without getting paid for it. Without making excuses for why you aren’t doing it.
“How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. 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. Forget about the future…” / This reminds me about what Benchmark Capital’s Matt Coehler said: "Our job as investors is to see the present very clearly, not to predict the future”. Whether it’s investing or life….focus on the present and don’t obsess over the future outcome. Look at what is true now. What is evident now? What are the crucial problems that needs to solved now? What matters now? What can you do now?
The boy continues on his journey with the alchemist the Englishman had met. On the journey, the alchemist reminds the boy that he already knows what he needs to do and the alchemist isn’t someone to tell him what to do or where to go. Just possibly give a general direction. This is indicative of what my experience has been like. You yearn for answers. For clearcut things people to tell you to do but the reality is that you inherently know what needs to be done. It’s about being able to listen to yourself so you can act on it. As the alchemist tells the boy: “There is only one way to learn… It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.” / No book or conversation can really teach you what you need to know. You need to execute.
**When pursuing your Personal Legend, the heart will tell you to quit while you’re ahead because it’s afraid of losing what you already have. This reminds me of what Paul Graham says in his essay on how most people will settle for something that might be something they love doing… instead of pushing further to really find work they love doing. Many settle out of fear. But once you realize that every hour on the journey of searching made you feel more alive than ever before…. It only makes sense to keep on going until that moment you feel in the bottom of your heart that there is nothing else.
“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.” The boy remembered an old Proverb from his country. It said the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.” / Most people quit too early… some quit just before they hit their break. But always remember when nothing seems to be working and you are in the darkest point of the journey… that’s when one should push harder. The journey is supposed to be painful.
“When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”
“If a person is living out his Personal Legend, he knows everything he Neds to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
“Lead will play its role until the world has no further ned for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” / What an alchemist truly does. They do not merely turn lead to gold. The deeper focus is why this results. The fact is that the only constant in the world is change and when one decides to accept that and go on search of constant improvement of the self, one will go from being lead to gold.
**Spoiler alert on the ending. Santiago finds the treasure. But it was actually under the tree in his hometown in Spain. But he had to go to the pyramids to learn that because that’s where he met the thieves who told him he had recurring dreams of treasure hidden in Spain but he wasn’t going to be a fool who crosses an ocean in search of treasures. Just like how Santiago had crossed the ocean from Spain to see the pyramids in Egypt in search of the treasure. The treasure was right next to him the whole time. But he needed to go on the journey. He needed to see the strange lands, learn love, and experience life and only then was he worthy of the treasure. Hence is life. Focus on the present and the journey and not on the riches. They’ll come.
Disclaimer - I’m writing this for myself. For my past, present and future self. Much of what I write is my opinion. If it somehow ignites agreement in you then great, I’d love to hear about it. If it sparks disagreement in you, don’t reach out because I don’t care for it. There always are obvious exceptions and the flawed person in me hasn’t considered them all.