The Alchemist

I read Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" three times while building my auto-tech company.

I thought I understood it.

Then I lost everything.

Only after watching ten years of work disappear did the book's actual message hit me. Santiago gets robbed in Tangier. He works for a crystal merchant for a year. He crosses a desert. He nearly dies multiple times.

The treasure was never the destination.

Here's what I missed: Coelho wrote the book in two weeks because, as he said, "it was already written in his soul." But his first publisher only printed 900 copies in 1988. They sold one copy in the first week. Six months later, they sold a second copy to the same person. The publisher dropped him, saying the book would never sell more than 900 copies.

Today, it's sold over 150 million copies in 80 languages.

That's the real story of The Alchemist.

The Part About Failure Nobody Talks About

The book's most quoted line states: "There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

I used to think that meant push through fear and you'll win.

I was wrong.

When I lost my company, I learned what the book actually teaches. Failure isn't something you push through to avoid. Failure is the path itself. Santiago doesn't avoid getting robbed. He gets robbed, and that robbery forces him to work for the crystal merchant, which teaches him about commerce, which prepares him for the rest of his journey.

The setback was the curriculum.

Ray Dalio lost everything in 1982 betting his entire hedge fund on a wrong prediction. He borrowed $4,000 from his father to survive. He rebuilt Bridgewater Associates into the world's largest hedge fund managing over $160 billion by 2024.

Elon Musk in 2008 faced Tesla weeks from bankruptcy and SpaceX on the brink after three failed launches. He split his last resources between both companies and risked total failure. Both succeeded.

Like Santiago being robbed in Tangier, these weren't detours. They were the path.

Why I Started AI For Muggles

After I lost my business, I spent time figuring out what I actually learned. Not what I wished I'd learned. What the experience actually taught me.

I learned that having and losing wealth teaches you different resilience than never having it. I learned that proximity to people who've achieved what you want accelerates lessons you can't learn from books. I learned that 99 percent of success is figuring out what you want.

But here's what connected back to The Alchemist: most people die never really knowing what their Personal Legends were.

In the book, children feel the pull toward their Personal Legend most strongly because they're more in tune with possibility and aren't afraid to dream big. As we age, we become conditioned to live according to what seems realistic. We reject our calling entirely, believing it's unachievable.

This is exactly what I see with AI right now.

Regular people have ideas. They see how AI could transform their work, their business, their life. But they're told AI is too technical, moving too fast, only for engineers. They're conditioned to believe their idea is unrealistic.

So they wait. They plan. They research. They never ship.

AI For Muggles exists because I believe your AI idea isn't random. It's already inside you, waiting to be validated. My frameworks don't create the idea. They clarify what's already there, much like Santiago didn't create his treasure. He just needed to follow the omens to find it.

The Universe Conspires, But You Have To Move

The book teaches: "When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his or her dream."

People love this quote. They put it on Instagram. They use it as a screensaver.

But they miss the next part: you must take action.

Santiago works for the crystal merchant and becomes rich. He could stay comfortable. Instead, he cashes in his earnings to continue pursuing his Personal Legend to the pyramids. This mirrors what I teach at AI For Muggles: validate with your minimum viable audience, get your first paying customer, but never lose sight of the bigger vision.

The merchant in the story represents those who dream of Mecca but never go. He talks about it. He plans for it. He never ships.

Your community helps you actually ship.

When you clarify your idea and commit fully, opportunities appear. Mentors show up. Resources materialize. But this happens after you move, not before. The universe conspires with action, not with planning.

What The Setback Actually Teaches

I used to think losing my company was the worst thing that happened to me.

Now I understand it was the crystal merchant phase.

Santiago needed to get robbed to learn commerce. I needed to lose everything to learn what actually matters. Not revenue. Not scale. Not exit multiples.

What matters is helping people find their Personal Legend before they're too conditioned to try.

The aspiring solopreneurs I work with aren't lacking ideas. They're lacking permission to believe their idea matters. They're lacking a proven path from 0 to proof of concept. They're lacking someone who's been robbed in Tangier and knows the way forward.

That's what my loss taught me to provide.

Your Treasure Is Where You Think It Isn't

At the end of The Alchemist, Santiago discovers his treasure was buried back home under the tree where his journey started. He had to cross the desert, nearly die, and reach the pyramids to learn this.

The journey was the point.

Your AI idea feels small right now. You think the real innovators are somewhere else, doing bigger things, with better resources. You think your treasure is at the pyramids.

But here's what I learned: the treasure is in taking the journey with what you have right now.

Not when you know more. Not when you have more time. Not when AI slows down enough for you to catch up.

Right now. With your idea. With your audience. With your first step.

I built and lost a company before I understood what Coelho was actually saying. Don't wait for your own Tangier robbery to start moving.

The universe conspires with those who ship.