The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream
The Founder of Inspire Leadership & focuses on unlocking people’s potential by providing them with programs; mentorship and coaching into high performance
By: Paulo Coelho
This fable story is about Santiago, a shepherd boy who travels from Spain to Egypt in search of a treasure. As he travels, he meets with three people who direct him to the location of the treasure; the three are a woman, a king and an Alchemist. Unfortunately, nobody among the three knows where the treasure is but one thing is clear, Santiago will have to face many obstacles as he heads towards the treasure. The story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.
The Alchemist provides life lessons to Santiago where he teaches him about personal legends. People want to find only the treasure of their legends but not the personal legend itself. Is this not what happens to us? The Alchemist advises that those who do not understand their legends will fail to comprehend the teachings of personal legends. There is a need to look at the treasures found within ourselves as opposed to looking at those outside ourselves.
The book also teaches us not to be afraid of losing what we have, be it our life, our possessions or property. We should overcome these fears by understanding that our life stories and the history of the world are written by the same hand. Secondly, we are afraid of pursuing our most important dreams because we feel like we do not deserve them or that we will be unable to achieve them. This is a myth that we should do away with. Thirdly is that there is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure and if indeed we manage to become better everything around us becomes better too.
If you are having Big Hairy audacious Goals (BHAGs) and somehow shrinking from them, this is one book that will make you more courageous. It does not matter what sort of a dream it is, provided it is a BHAG, the universe will conspire to help you achieve it if you want and you are putting efforts towards it. The book will also give you a sense of how to overcome insurmountable tasks and provide you with the mantra that you must live the life you truly desire to the fullest if you want to look back on life and find it having worth lived.
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CEO Capital Strategies Limited
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Country Director, Uganda, Strathmore University Business School
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