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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis what's going on everybody? Welcome back to the show. Just me, you and the mic on this episode and on this show we release three episodes a day. Right now we're doing a solo show co hosted show with my producer Eric, as well as an interview with an inspirational entrepreneur. So if you'd rather listen to one of those and go check out one of those ones. But I do have a lot of fun putting together these outlines for you and sharing some of the things that I've learned over the course of publishing over 1500 podcast episodes in the past eight years, reading over 200 books, listening to countless hours of podcasts myself. This is sort of my hey, this is what I've learned, let's see if it's helpful for you type of a project. So today I'm going to be talking about Lessons from the Alchemist. The Alchemist. If you're unfamiliar, it's a great book. I highly recommend reading it. And it's a great audiobook too, because it's more like a story than it like sort of like an allegory. And I highly recommend checking it out. But if you have not read it, I want to give just sort of. Here's my. Here's some of my key takeaways from this book. The Alchemist follows a young shepherd named Santiago who keeps having the same recurring dream about treasure hidden near the Egyptian pyramids. Instead of dismissing it, he takes it seriously and decides to chase it, Leaves behind a simple, comfortable life and sets out across Spain and North Africa, guided by the idea of a personal legend, the belief that each person has something they're meant to pursue. Along the way, he meets kings, merchants, thieves, and an alchemy, each encounter teaching him something about fear, loss, patience, intuition, and faith. The journey is not smooth. He gets robbed. He questions himself, nearly settles for a life that would be good enough a couple of different times. But every time he's tempted to stop the journey, he's reminded that ignoring the call comes with its own cost. In the end, after traveling thousands of miles and facing real risk, Santiago discovers that the treasure he was searching for was back where he started, in his own backyard. Not because the journey was pointless, but because the journey was the point. He had to leave. He had to struggle, he had to grow in order to become the Person capable of recognizing the treasure that was where it was the whole time. The story isn't really about finding the treasure. It's about who you become when you commit to the pursuit of your personal legend and how the adventure itself is what gives the thing its meaning. And this is probably the most difficult part about being a parent, is that someday one day you're going to have to let go and let your. Let the piece of your beating heart that exists outside of your body walk into the world and face their own adventure. And that's why it is our duty as parents to make sure that our kids are able to work through struggle, that they're able to work through difficulty, and that they're able to have opportunity to feel fear and do that thing anymore way and to, to recognize the pleasure of getting a win on something that you didn't feel like doing. The engineering those moments for your kids is highly important because the adventure is what makes life worth living. It's not about. It's not about having the thing, it's about who you become along the way of pursuing the thing. So, I mean, too many takeaways to go into on a single episode, to be honest with you, because it's such a great book. But there's a couple of things that I wanted to touch on here that were impactful or meaningful to me that, that I wanted to share with you. First off, if you're not willing to risk what you have to get what you want, then you probably won't get it. So I think of this as sort of like the closed fist, open hand thing because a lot of people who are listening right now are, are in the good enough phase. They, they, you, you, you, you started out with this personal legend that you, you started out on this journey to attain something, something tangible, a goal that you had in mind. And then you got sidetracked, sort of settling because you were like, hey, you know what? This path, this is good enough. I can do what I really want to do. Yeah, it's not necessarily the exact thing that I was looking for, but you know, it's sort of dream adjacent. So, you know, may as well just stay on this path for, you know, the rest of my life. And then what happens is you start, you start closing the fist and then this is the same person who starts resenting the people in their life, starts resenting the opportunities that they have, and then starts preaching that, that there's not enough opportunity out there. And then you start getting this victim mindset when in reality there's no way to accept an opportunity unless you have the open hand. But in order to have the open hand, you have to be willing to let go of what you currently have. You can't do both. You can't hold on super tight to what you currently have and open your hand to be able to receive new opportunities. At the same time, you have to be willing to let go of that which is good in order to be able to pursue that which is great. The higher calling, the personal legend that you're called to go pursue. So if you're not willing to risk what you have to get what you want, then you probably, probably won't get it. Number two, tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself and that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams. Because every second of the search is an encounter with God. This is a quote from the book that I really, really enjoyed because it's something that I've said from time to time, which is that I'm convinced that if you pursue the thing that you really want, you will find more fulfillment in that pursuit than you will in the attainment of something that you don't really want. So the, the fear that you have, the fear of the suffering that comes along, the journey that you're allowing to hold you back is worse. That fear is worse than the suffering itself because the suffering is not actually suffering when it's in pursuit of that which you want. So it's, it's, they're diametric, diametrically opposed concepts. You, the, the, the. That's why, that's why it's saying that the fear is worse than the actual suffering. Because look, suffering is a part of life. You can't avoid it. The, the question is, are you going to choose, Are you going to choose engineered suffering based on the things that you want in life? Or are you going to choose suffering that life is going to throw at you no matter what? They don't have much control over pursuing something that you don't really want. Suffering is unavoidable. You're just going to have to choose which suffering you want to have. And the suffering in pursuit of your dreams is not actually suffering. No one has ever suffered when it goes, when, when the heart, no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams. Because every second of the search is an encounter with God. It lifts you out this normal milieu where everything seems like suffering and puts you into this world of optimism that because you're in pursuit of this higher Calling the suffering itself is sort of what gives the life meaning and, and, and completes the holistic picture of what the adventure actually is to you. Number three. When you possess great treasures within you and you try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed. This is that old quote about, you know, how, how people will. People will doubt you and talk crap about you, all right up until the point where you made it. And then they want to be the, the person who jumps back in and goes, like, I always knew you were going to make something of yourself, you know? And it's like, well, where were you when I needed the support? Back when I was getting started and nobody believed in me and everybody was talking shit and everybody was being quiet and nobody was supporting me. Where were you when that happened? Not now that I've made it now, of course, you're. You want to take some credit and be like, I always, always KN. To be up to something good. You know, it's like, well, it would have been nice to know that, you know, a decade ago when I started this adventure, because I was a little bit unsure myself. And now that I've attained it, now you want to come in and play the hero. Yeah, that's, that's not going to work. So just understand that's a part of the process that when you possess great treasures within you, if you believe that you possess great treasures within you, which is where the, where the adventure actually starts is in the mind, you have to believe that it's possible. Even if you, even if you can't imagine how it is, you have to just have this delusional belief in yourself that. And this optimistic belief in yourself that at some point you're going to attain what you set out to attain, because seldom will you be believed when you try to tell others of what you believe is inside of you. So, number four, anyone who interferes with the personal legend of another thing will never discover his own. I love this one because this, to me, is a broader commentary on what culture is today where people feel this need, especially online and social and social media and stuff. People feel this need to constantly interfere with the personal legends of other people. They, they, they want to throw stones, they want to talk shit and, and they get views and they get likes and they get comments because they're creating divisive stuff. But that's why I've never really jumped into that world that much, because I'm just like, I just don't find that there's much good that comes from that. There's not. It Puts me in negative energy to, to. To worry about other people are doing. And then I don't know about all the intricate details of their life. I don't know what their intentions are. This is all just guessing. This is all just commentary from an ignorant perspective status to, to like, I don't even really understand the goal of it. Minus the fact that, you know, you might get views because you're saying controversial stuff. But just know that if you're somebody who does that, that you will probably never discover your own personal legend because you're just way too busy interfering with the personal legends of other people or other things. And which is another reason why, you know, it comes to this, like politics discussion and stuff. I often choose the path of burying my head in the sand. And I know there's a lot of people who would be wildly opposed, but I've just found that there's just not much good that comes from that. It's much better to maintain a positive mindset, to look for the good in every situation, to look for the good in every connection. Instead of looking for why I should hate the person that I just met, I'm looking for why I should love the person that I just met. What are the things that we have in common? Not what are the things that we're going to disagree on so that I can write them off and then talk shit about them as soon as I make this connection happen. So anyone who interferes with the personal legend of another thing will never discover his own number five. There's only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve, and that is the fear of failure. I am convinced that the fear of failure, or the fear of embarrassment, the fear of rejection, the fear of these, these low level things have prevented the most amount of innovation and success than anything else the world has ever seen. And the alchemist sort of backs me up on this. There's only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve, and that's the fear of failure. You cannot let the fear of failure prevent you from taking the first steps toward achieving your dre, because I guarantee you, you're not going to reach them otherwise. So you're fearing something that you are by definition guaranteeing. If you don't do anything at all, the only reason that you stay in that thought process is because you are fearing the effects of failure, which would be the embarrassment. Meaning that the only reason that you are not taking the steps forward is not necessarily even you're going to. You think you might fail. It's because you are Worried about what everybody else is going to think about how you might fail. You're worried that it's going to affect your social status. You're worried that it's going to embarrass your family. You're worried about so many things that have never even happened and you're allowing yourself to just stay home instead of go out on the great adventure that life has for you in pursuit of this higher meaning or this higher calling. And it will always lead you down the path of the thing that I fear most than anything else, which is regret. There's a Bri. I love this. I think it's, I think it comes from Tony Robbins. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think it comes from Tony Robbins, but it's the rocking chair test. And I love this frame, this, this, this frame to think through things, which is that imagine yourself on your rocking chair on your porch. You're 90, 95, 100 years old, whatever, you know, age you want to think about. But you're at an age where you're basically, you're, you're, you're, you're on the final of life. There's not much that you can do to go back and change any of the things that you've actually chosen throughout your life. And the much, much, much more powerful frame is to start thinking about your big decisions, especially the big decisions in light of the rocking chair test rather than in light of the fear of failure. Because, man, the worst case scenario to me is being 95 and then, and then regretting that I didn't do something when I was younger because I was so afraid of failing or I was so afraid of what other people would think about my failure that it prevented me from doing something like that. Because when you're 90, 95, none of that stuff matters. The people who you were worried about, they've probably been out of your life for 50 years. Because when you go, go through so many life transitions, you kind of shed relationships, shed people, you, you change, they change. Stuff happens, Life happens. And the people who you are currently worried about, their opinions of you, they probably won't even be your be in your life in a decade, let alone in five decades or six decades or you are from 90 or 100 years old. So why are you allowing their opinions to prevent you from potentially living the life that you want to live, man. Stop worrying about failure and embarrassment and rejection and start fearing regret. Start fearing that version of yourself that can't do anything to change the decisions that you made now and, and if you can, if you can make those decisions from that frame, it's much more powerful frame to make the decisions from and you'll probably be a lot happier and more fulfilled in life. And then lastly the this. So this is a, a, this is a, a little excerpt from, from the book that, that I really, really liked. And it sort of like in works for like even a business perspective, entrepreneurial perspective in terms of like practical stuff like pricing your services and things like that. But basically there was a, a monk who got a payment from the alchemist in this story. And the monk did something. I forget exactly what the exchange of services was, but he did something for the alchemist. And the alchemist, they, they had agreed upon a certain amount of money. And then the alchemist goes, paying all the people who are involved in this project, gets to the monk and he gives the monk more money than the monk originally had thought that he was going to get from this. And so the monk, after getting that good payment from the alchemist, he says, but this goes well beyond my generosity, meaning, like, you're paying me way too much for the thing that I just did for you. And the alchemist says back to the monk, he says, don't say that again because life might be listening and give you less next time. I loved that quote from that book because you see this happen all the time where people will assign their personal value into the minds of other people. And I'll give you a perfect example of this. And this is just because this is top of mind. We've talked about this since then, so it's not a big deal. But my wife and I have this Acaibo store and this is sort of her first entrepreneurial venture because I say it's our store, but it's mostly her store. She does like 95% of the world for this. I basically sort of just act as almost like a consultant and just try to help out when I can just because I have all my other stuff that I'm working on. And so I remember we, we had gotten, we started stocking Celsius in the store and this one guy came through the store and for some reason forget exactly what it was. We just had this case of Celsius and he was like, well, I would rather actually have the case for this. I don't know, like a party I'm throwing or something. And, and he's like, how much? How much for the case case? And my wife was like discounting it in her mind because she was like, well, it only cost me this much. So I don't want to, like, charge him what I would have charged for, like, each individual can. I want to, like, give him a good deal, whatever. But he literally told her before, he was like, charge me whatever you would normally charge me. Like, don't give me. Don't give me a deal or a discount, whatever. Because he was also an entrepreneur, and turns out he has a very, very successful business. His. His car is worth more than our store. You know, like, he driving a Rolls Royce Cullinan, and it's only one of his vehicles. Really successful guy, really cool guy, local, just generous entrepreneur. And she was worried about charging him the additional 75 bucks that it was going to be to have the cans. And so she ended up giving him a deal. And I remember talking to her after that and talking about this quote from this book, because it was like, don't say that. Don't put that out into the universe, because life might be listening and give you less next time. And especially in this particular scenario where somebody who's a generous entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, who loved seeing her starting her own store and wanted to support and wanted to help and wanted to pay more than the thing was worth. He was just trying to support. It wasn't necessarily him, like, needing a bunch of Celsius. He could go acquire that wherever he wanted to. He was just trying to support the business. And so don't. Don't say that again, because life might be listening and give you less next time. Do not. Do not presuppose. Do not cast your own judgments of your worth onto other people, because you never know what exactly they're valuing in you or what they see in you. So there's a few lessons. Just a few lessons from. From the Alchemist. Like, it's. Like I said, I highly recommend going and checking out that book. It's a. It's a great read. And it's a. Even better listen, in my opinion, because it's. It's just an allegory. It's just a story that's being told from the narrator's perspective. But I would. I would throw this into the lineup. Absolutely, 100%. It's one of those books that I revisit from time to time. So those are the lessons from the Alchemist. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Catch you in the next one. Peace out.