9 Golden Life Lessons From The Alchemist!

It is a book I have read several times, and each time I read it I take away new life lessons! The book of which I am speaking is The Alchemist, which is one of the best-selling books in history. However, it was not until I did some research on the author, Pablo Coelho, that it all fascinatingly came together for me! I will get to that a little later, but first, let’s discuss some of the lessons from The Alchemist.

Before I get into the 9 lessons from The Alchemist, let’s briefly discuss the premise of the book which is…

Pursuing Your Personal Legend

The plot of The Alchemist revolves around chasing your dreams or life’s purpose which Coelho refers to as your ‘Personal Legend’.

“To realize one’s Personal Legend is a person’s only real obligation.” ¹

To make his point, Coelho tells a tale about a young shepherd boy named Santiago who leaves his herd of sheep in search of buried treasure in a faraway land.

I will give you a high-level telling of the story and will insert some lessons from The Alchemist that I learned as we go along…

The story begins…

…with Santiago bringing his sheep to an abandoned church in the countryside where he will sleep for the night. He is excited as in a few days he will visit a merchant who will buy some of his wool. However, he is even more excited to see the merchant’s daughter, whom he met a year earlier and whom he has a crush on. Santiago fantasizes that the girl may possibly be ‘the one’.

However, his fantasy is quickly derailed by recurring dreams where he is told by a child to visit the Great Pyramids in Egypt where he will find buried treasure. It is when he decides to see if he can find out what the dreams mean that his life totally changes.

Upon the advice of a gypsy lady and an interesting old man who claims to be the ‘King of Salem’, he decides to sell his herd of sheep and sails to Morocco in pursuit of the hidden treasure from his dreams.

During his conversation with the old man he learns an important lesson which is…

Lesson 1: Don’t Be Concerned with What Others Think

The old man says to Santiago: “In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own personal legends.”

The lesson being not to worry about or let what others think of your dreams or life’s purpose stop you!

It is while Santiago is contemplating whether or not to leave the girl and pursue his Personal Legend where our next lesson appears…

 Lesson 2:  Be Grateful for Every Day

Santiago thinks to himself, “When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

Meaning, take time to think about and be grateful for what you have every day and try to find the good in each day.

Shortly after arriving in Morocco, his money is stolen by a man he meets in a bar whom the bartender had tried to warn him about.

Lesson 3:  Take Off Your Rose-Colored Glasses!

While reflecting on the incident and his misfortune, the boy was able to come to terms with it, “I’m like everyone else – I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.” He didn’t heed the bartender’s advice as he wanted to believe what he wanted to believe was in his best interest which was that the man was trying to help him.

The lesson here is that there are times we see things how we want them to be, not as how they really are. Sometimes we need to step back and try to look at things in an unbiased way.

This sudden misfortune causes him to quickly find a job in a crystal shop.  He ends up working there for a year and makes enough money to buy his sheep back. However, after some thought, he ultimately decides to continue in pursuit of his Personal Legend by joining a caravan and crossing the desert.

As the caravan gets closer to the pyramids, he learns many lessons and meets many people including a girl named Fatima whom he falls in love with.

Two of the lessons he learned while crossing the desert were…

Lesson 4: Be Observant and Open to Learning New Things

As he is crossing the desert, he thinks to himself, “I’ve learned things from the sheep, and I’ve learned things from crystal, he thought. I can learn something from the desert, too. It seems old and wise.”

Meaning that you can learn life lessons anywhere from anything at any time. The key is to always be observant and open-minded to learning new things.

Lesson 5: Focus on the Present

The next lesson comes in a conversation he has with the camel driver who says to Santiago, “Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate on the present, you’ll be a happy man.”

The lesson being, don’t worry about the past or the future, focus on the present.

At one point he contemplates abandoning his journey to stay with Fatima, but ultimately, he decides to carry on his journey. This comes after speaking with a powerful alchemist he had just met who would accompany and mentor him until he reached the pyramids.

Lesson 6: Don’t Let Anyone or Anything Derail Your Dreams

While contemplating whether to stay with Fatima or continue on his journey, the alchemist says, “You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love…”

The advice being not to let anyone or anything stop you in the pursuit of your dreams. If they really love you, they will support you and will be there for you. If not, maybe they aren’t for you.

As they are traveling, Santiago asks the alchemist why he hasn’t taught him anything yet, which brings us to…

Lesson 7:  Take Action to Learn

The alchemist responds with, “There is only one way to learn…It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey…”

Meaning that it is great to read and study and listen, but to really learn you need to put your learnings into practice!

Eventually, he makes it to the pyramids where he weeps for joy realizing that his dream has come true. He then begins to dig for treasure where his tears fall. At that point, he is confronted by some robbers who beat the crap out of him.

One of the robbers mocks him and says he once had a similar dream looking for treasure in a crumbling church. It is after they leave that Santiago puts two and two together and realize the abandoned church the robber is talking about it is where he has his dream. That’s where the treasure is!

The story comes full circle as he arrives back at the same church where the story began. Once he is there, he has a big revelation, which leads us to…

Lesson 8: The Real Treasure! 

The real treasure was not the riches he found buried beneath the church. Rather, the real riches were the lessons learned, the personal growth and improvements he made, and the experiences he had in the search for his Personal Legend.

Which Brings Us to Our Final Lesson from The Alchemist…

And it comes from the author, Pablo Coelho himself.

You see, when The Alchemist was first published back in 1988 in Coelho’s native Brazil…no one noticed!

In fact, it took 6 months to sell two copies…and they were to the same person!

The first publisher canceled the contract with Coelho after the first year and cut him loose. According to Coelho, “But I never lost faith in the book or ever wavered in my vision. Why? Because it was me in there, all of me, heart and soul. I was living my own metaphor. A man sets out on a journey, dreaming of a beautiful or magical place, in pursuit of some unknown treasure. At the end of his journey, the man realizes the treasure was with him the entire time. I was following my own Personal Legend, and my treasure was my capacity to write. And I wanted to share this treasure with the world.” ¹

Lesson 9: Never Give Up Pursuing Your Personal Legend

Just as Santiago never gave up on pursuing his Personal Legend, neither did Coelho. Despite the poor initial reception of the book, the book has gone on to sell over 65 million copies, been translated into 80 different languages (a Guinness World Record) and been on the NY Times bestseller list for 315 weeks!

That’s it for our 9 lessons from The Alchemist. And…on that note, it is time for this writer to end this blog post, so I can go write another and keep pursuing my own Personal Legend!

Until next time, keep pursuing your personal legend and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

P.S. Wanna know more? Check out the entire book.

Use It or Lose It – Lessons from The Alchemist

Some of the lessons from The Alchemist are:

(1)  Don’t be too concerned with what others think.
(2)  Be grateful for every day.
(3)  Take off your rose-colored glasses!
(4)  Be observant and open to learning new things.
(5)  Focus on the present.
(6)  Don’t let anyone or anything derail your dreams.
(7)  Take action to learn.
(8)  The real treasure is the journey.
(9)  Never give up pursuing your personal legend.

When to Use It:

Use these lessons from The Alchemist whenever applicable in your life!

What Do You Think?

Have you read The Alchemist? What do you think of these lessons from The Alchemist? Did you have any different lessons from The Alchemist than I did? Please share in the comments below!

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References

1 Coelho, P. (1998). The Alchemist. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/04/the-alchemist-paulo-coelho-oprah_n_5762092.html