Highest Purpose, Small Goals

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When you add my pronunciation course to your VIP membership. Of course, my pronunciation course... The pronunciation course is also at EffortlessEnglishClub.com Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com I'm back yesterday. I spent the day with family.

Playing with some children, actually. Had a good time. Lots of fun. Always enjoy doing that. When I do that, you know, it's usually a long day because I'll usually spend the whole day with them and they are very energetic, as all parents out there know, and they just never stop.

They just go, go, go from when they wake up until it's bedtime. So there's not many breaks when I'm hanging out with the kids. But today, right now, I am in downtown Osaka.

Let's talk more about Osaka, just in case you wanted to visit Osaka or Japan. It's time for another tourist show. Recommendation, tourist description from your guide. That's me, AJ Hoag.

Anyway, Osaka, like most big cities, right, Osaka's a big city. It's a large city, you know, so it's like Tokyo. Not as big as Tokyo, but it's still big. It's big, like San Francisco, New York, London, you know, big famous cities.

So large cities, right, because they're large, they usually have several different locations or areas, right? Not just one, because they're so large. So Osaka's similar, of course.

There are several interesting, famous locations. But the cool thing about Osaka is that the major business areas, shopping areas, restaurant areas, they're really in the center of

On the south side of Osaka, in the center, you've got Namba Station. There is actually a Namba train station. And then, of course, the whole neighborhood around it is also called Namba. So that's Namba.

And that's the big... We say H-U-B hub, right? It's kind of the central location of... Because it's got the big train station, there's several train lines. They all stop right at that spot.

And one of the major ones starts and finishes at Namba Station. So the train's going south. They go through Namba, right? So there are lots and lots of shops and restaurants and businesses and things.

So it's really kind of the big area in the south of Osaka, in the center. Then in the north of Osaka, there's another one. And this is called Umeda. And Umeda is the big neighborhood area around Osaka Station.

As you might guess, Osaka Station is also a major, even more major train station. Osaka Station and that area, that large Umeda area, lots and lots of trains come through there and stop there and start there.

So Umeda. That's in the north central, right? Center of the city in the north. Now here's the cool part. Yeah. Between Namba in the south and Umeda in the north, there's one big main road called Midosuji.

Now Midosuji is also probably the biggest, meaning the busiest, subway line in the city. It's the red line, if you visit. And it goes north to south, connects Namba to Umeda. It's also a great walk, because in between Namba and Umeda,

kind of through that central zone, there are several other nice shopping and eating areas. If you start at Namba, you start walking north, there's something called Dotamburi, Dotamburi, which has now become kind of a tourist thing, but traditionally it was food and drink, and not expensive. Traditionally, that Dotamburi area, it's kind of a walkway, a covered walkway,

And traditionally it is the place, basically the party place, the late night place in Osaka where you go to get, you know, kind of reasonably priced food and drink.

Now, unfortunately, I'd say unfortunately, it's become very touristy. It's probably like 80% tourist now. So I almost never go there because it's not really a local place anymore.

Also, if you start at Namba and you go north, but instead of... So Dotonbori is north, but kind of a little to the east. If you're going north from Namba, but you go a little to the west, then it's Shinsaibashi. Shinsaibashi.

Shinsaibashi. Shinsaibashi is... That's kind of a cool area. I like it, actually. It's maybe my favorite area in Osaka now. It's got a lot of little local shops, especially lots of clothes.

There's a little area in that called Amerikamura. Amerikamura means American town. It's this one little area that has a lot of shops that sell clothes that are American style.

But then all along Chinsaibashi, along this kind of walk going north, Lots of little small shops. That's why I like it, because it's small local people, not just big chains, right? Not big international chains.

It's little small things, little small shops selling clothes or cafes or little small Japanese restaurants, things like that. Kind of funky, a little bit of artsy feeling.

I like it. Yeah, it's kind of a lot of interesting creative people there. You can walk around there. You can see some interesting fashions of people walking around.

So Shinsabashi, that's a nice little area. I like it. So that's going north, but a little to the west. Going north a little to the east is Dotonbori, which I just described.

And then if you go north right down the center, that's Midosuji. And Midosuji is really more the big international chains, kind of the expensive shops, things like that, you know.

Louis Vuitton, and you'll see a lot, you know, Gucci, you see that kind of stuff. Which for me is nothing special, because it's the same in every single city everywhere in the world.

But I will say, I don't like to shop so much on that Midosuji Street, but the actual road is kind of nice. It has trees down the middle. Right now, especially, it's very nice at night because they're doing something called Festival of Lights here.

They're doing it November and December. And they've put all these really pretty colored lights in the trees and the bushes all along that road, all the way from Namba, going in the south of the city, up the road, up Midosuji Road, all the way to Umeda in the north of the city. I walked the whole walk, when was it, yesterday?

Two days ago. Two days ago, I walked, I went, I actually took a, I walked up to Umeda in the day, but then at night, I walked back to Namba down the street,

At night, and it was so pretty. Really pretty. It reminded me, actually, of Christmas in America, where in some of the towns and cities, they put up lots of Christmas lights.

Of course, they're not celebrating Christmas here in Japan, but it's still a nice... I like the lights. Very pretty. Also along this, you know, kind of in the middle, in the center again, there's something called honmachi.

Homachi is a little to the east, but it's right in the middle, right between Namba in the south and Umeda in the north. In the middle, something called Homachi. And again, it's lots of little local shops, little local restaurants, lots of little small local restaurants, mostly Japanese.

Little coffee shops, things like that. And occasionally you find some little clothes shops and things. But again, local people and small restaurants. And then ask for, you know, Omeda, like Namba, but even more so.

Omeda is just a huge area. Really big. It's the largest business shopping area of Osaka. So it's got everything. It's got gigantic malls with international shops.

And it also has a large number of local shops and restaurants. And it's just, it's huge. I don't really even know that area so much. For me, it's a little too big.

I don't know the Omeda area very well. I know how to get there, and I walk around a little, but it's just so large. It's a little overwhelming for me trying to get around it.

I've got a few spots I go to, but mostly I stay down in the south near Namba Station because it's closer to where I live, and it's a little smaller, so easier to manage.

So if you visit Osaka, I do recommend, especially, check out Homachi, check out Shinsaibashi, especially if you like shopping. You know, Osaka's really good for shopping and eating.

There's not a lot to see in Osaka, like famous sites. Because, you know, I've mentioned before, the city was destroyed during the war. The main site to see is Osaka Castle, which is very cool. Go see it if you get a chance.

But otherwise, it's not very pretty. There's not really anything famous to look at. But it does have lots of cool little shops and lots of great restaurants.

Okay, moving on. Moving on. Let's talk a little more about The Alchemist. We're going to finish The Alchemist this weekend. The big conclusion... The big conclusion of The Alchemist.

I was just reviewing the ending of The Alchemist, this last part. And again, we have to realize that this is a parable. It's a symbolic story. Of course, most meaningful stories have symbolism in them.

But this kind of story, the symbolism is very, very big and obvious, okay? So in this kind of story, it's very clear and very obvious that things are symbols for other things, right?

It's not just directly telling a story. We have to always look for the meaning behind what's happening. So we've already discussed, for example, the treasure in this story. Well, what's the meaning of the treasure?

It's not really about going and getting some gold. It's not a story about a guy who has an adventure and he gets some gold. Sometimes we have stories like that, right? In movies, where it really is just an adventure.

It's about some guys or some people and they just... They have a big adventure, and they go, and they get a bunch of money at the end, and it doesn't really have a lot deeper meaning to it, right? There's some stories where the symbolism is much lighter, much less.

But in this kind of story, this kind of parable, we know very clearly that Paulo Coelho is not telling an adventure story, right? And he makes it so obvious because all through the book, almost every page, he's giving us directly, very directly, messages, right? Spiritual messages, messages about meaning, messages about life.

So it's very, very, very, very direct. Some would say too direct. I mean, that's maybe one of my small criticisms of Coelho's writing in general. It's just a little too much for me.

For me, he kind of loses the story. His messages are so strong and so obvious and he's trying so hard to push his messages that I feel that the story, he kind of loses the story many times. His storytelling is weak.

His descriptions, for example, of what's happening are very weak. They're very, very, very shallow. He doesn't give many details. With this kind of book, and especially with Coelho, really, the story is just an excuse.

The story is just an excuse for Coelho to tell us his messages about life. And... I don't know. I kind of, sometimes I go back and forth. It's a nice story.

On the other hand, sometimes I just wish, you know, maybe just write a non-fiction book and just tell us directly. Right? But some prefer this style of parable where you kind of, you're telling a message or messages and then you kind of put it in a little simple story.

So we have a conclusion coming up. Santiago and the alchemist that he met, the alchemist is now helping him, they're going to go into the desert. And he's going to have really one, kind of two, but really one, truly big, dangerous challenge. One more where his life is at risk.

And in this section, he basically has to do some magic. He has to conjure up. It's kind of like a magician. Alchemy. Alchemy. Magic. Now, the first time I read this part of the story, well, not the first time, a couple weeks ago when I read it again, and I kind of had to struggle with it a little bit.

I mean, it was obvious what he's saying, but I really had to think about it because I thought, well, what am I going to teach about this in the book club?

You know, what is the message here, really, that is useful for all of us? Because on the surface, it's, you know, he goes and he talks to the wind and he talks to the sky and he talks to the sun. And he kind of does this big, huge magic trick, basically.

What's that about? What? Well, I think the key is that to perform this magic trick after there's this really, really, really long description that goes on and on and on about, you know, how he has to talk to the wind and talk to this and talk to that and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But what it comes down to eventually is that he has to talk to or connect with, maybe is a better word, connect with God and

To perform this magic trick, he has to make a connection with, kind of pray to, talk to God. And that's how it finally happens. That's how he's finally able to perform this trick, this magical trick.

What does this mean? This is his masterwork. See, when he finally accomplishes this, when he finally does this, really he has gotten his treasure now. This is his treasure.

It's not, you know, the story continues and he does get some money at the end, but really this is the true treasure that he's been going towards, although he didn't realize it, right?

But this is the true treasure. The true treasure is that he gains this deep, deep, deep wisdom through through this huge challenge he doesn't really know magic he doesn't know how to make this trick happen he's going to die if he doesn't do it and so he has to what? he has to finally he prays to the wind he prays to this none of that works completely and finally he has to pray to God and connect with God and I think this is the message

That in other words, he has to find the highest wisdom, the highest truth. Part of what makes this a little difficult is Coelho's weird alchemy language.

Because... In many different parts of the world, we have already traditions that describe what he's trying to talk about, but I think using more clear words that people understand more. He talks about the masterwork, the masterwork, and talking to the wind, and all this stuff. But I think what he's really talking about is something that Aldous Huxley described as unitive knowledge.

Unitive knowledge. That's a little bit difficult phrase. Let's talk about what it means. Knowledge is understanding, right? Unitive understanding. Unitive means to join as one.

To become one with something. Okay, so what does this mean? Unitive knowledge. It means that you know something by becoming part of it. By joining it.

It has the idea of direct experience, not just book knowledge. When you have book knowledge, it's not unitive knowledge. You're not joining with, you're not connecting with the knowledge.

For example, again, let's imagine you want to travel to India and you read a guidebook about India. Well, now you have knowledge of India... But you have no real connection with India. You've never been to India.

You never entered into India and actually experienced India directly. So you have a kind of knowledge, but it's not unitive knowledge. It's a separate knowledge. It's a knowledge of separation.

That's what book knowledge is, school knowledge. It's all separate because you're separated away from what you're trying to learn, from what you're trying to know.

See, what Aldous Huxley said, and I believe what Coelho is telling us, and what many great philosophers and saints and others have told us, is that you never really know something unless you join with it and directly experience it. With the book knowledge, you really don't know. You kind of know some things, but you really don't know. You really don't understand.

You really don't understand India unless you go there And really, you don't understand India unless you go there and stay there for quite a long time.

But if you just read a book about it, you know more than you did before, but it's a very separate, shallow kind of knowledge. So unitive knowledge is the opposite. Unitive knowledge is the idea that you're joining in or you're directly experiencing this thing that you're trying to know or understand.

So Aldous Huxley talked about and wrote about the unitive knowledge of and then the universe, God, wisdom, the Tao, Allah, Brahmin, whatever word you want to use, it doesn't matter

Nirvana. So I think that is what the message of this whole long, a little bit complicated section about him doing this big long spell. Because for the spell to finally work, the magic to finally work, he has to connect with God directly.

Not just reading about it in an alchemy book. He has to gain a direct connection, a direct experience. If you don't like the word God, if you're not religious, then you can just use the word the universe or wisdom or understanding. But he had to gain a deep understanding of the cosmos, the universe, life, the universe, and everything, of deep, deep, deep meaning, of deep, deep, deep purpose.

Now, as I said, Coelho, using the alchemy language, this is described as finishing the masterwork. Their masterwork, that's what it's about. It's not really about making gold.

It's about gaining this understanding. Now we have better words for this, more common words. The more common words for this would be salvation or awakening or enlightenment.

These are the words that have been used for thousands of years by different philosophers and saints to describe The same process. When you gain the unitive knowledge, you connect with and then therefore truly understand the universe, the Tao, God, etc.

Then you are enlightened. Then you are awakened. You wake up to true reality. You're enlightened. It means you're filled with light. Or you're saved. Salvation.

You achieve salvation. Saved from what? Saved from suffering. Saved from ignorance. Saved from evil. Saved from pain. That is the true treasure. That is the real treasure that Santiago has been looking for.

And that is the true treasure that he finds, that he achieves, that he attains and gets. He gets it before he gets the gold. And what's interesting is, after he does this, after he achieves and attains this great understanding, this true treasure,

Then after that, I mean, the story keeps going and he goes to the pyramids, right? And he keeps going and we'll talk more about this Saturday or Sunday.

But you can kind of feel, at least I do, from that point on that like the gold part just doesn't seem all that important anymore. Right? It's like he has become who he needed to become. He has found that greatest wisdom, the greatest purpose, the greatest understanding.

He's transformed. He's changed. He's changed. and to a completely different person. And now that he has attained that great wisdom, that awakening, the enlightenment, the salvation, the gold, I mean, he keeps going, right?

He goes. He keeps going, but you can tell he doesn't seem to even care that much about it. We'll talk again this weekend more about it because when he finally gets to the pyramids, you see he starts looking for the gold and then he starts having problems and he's like, he has equanimity at that point. He has a great equanimity about the gold.

He's still trying to get it because he's trying to fulfill his dream that he had. But you can also feel that he knows that he has already achieved the true treasure, and so he's going to be okay, he's going to be happy, he's going to have this wisdom no matter what happens, whether he gets the gold or he doesn't get the gold.

Even whether he lives or dies, it seems like he has found this great peace inside of himself. As we look at this, I think there is a very nice message that Coelho is giving us here.

If we look at the whole story now, now that we're getting to the end, and we go back and we kind of consider, think about the whole thing, we can kind of see that one of the messages he's giving us, perhaps the main message he's giving us, is that lesser goals, smaller goals, smaller dreams...

can, can, not always, but can lead us to greater and greater and greater missions. And eventually can lead us to the highest purpose, the highest meaning of all.

Santiago, he starts in Spain. He has a dream of treasure. Literally treasure, right? Meaning actual gold in a box, right? He has this dream about it. Do I follow this dream?

But when we think about it, that's kind of a small goal. It's not very deep. When he's in Spain at the beginning, he's not thinking about wisdom. He knows nothing about alchemy at all.

He's not thinking about deep meaning, philosophy, God. He's not thinking about any of that stuff. He's just walking with his sheep. He has a dream about gold at the pyramids.

Money. But it's such a powerful dream that he feels like, well, maybe there's some message in this because it seems really powerful. And of course, it's attractive to him.

Get rich. Find a bunch of gold. So in some ways, it's a little bit of a shallow dream. goal or dream, but because he follows it, it leads him deeper and deeper, right?

Because we see that the journey itself, just trying to get to the gold, the money, because he keeps thinking about it, because he keeps facing challenges and difficulties, because he keeps learning and growing, learning and growing, trying to get this gold, that this gold, this

kind of basic, greedy dream, really, in a way, it leads him to wisdom. And I think that is a message that Koileo is trying to tell us, that when we really think about it, these things that give us great enthusiasm, these intuitive dreams that come to us again and again, that seem extra-powerful,

that seem to carry or have some kind of deep emotion or something in them. And sometimes we're not sure why. We just feel like, I need to start a business. And I don't know, you're not thinking about God or truth or wisdom or any of that.

Maybe you just think, I'm sick of my job, I need to do this. But... If you keep thinking deeply and you keep asking these questions, you keep going, you keep learning, especially that. You keep learning and especially you keep going deeper.

You keep thinking more deeply, asking deeper and deeper questions, constantly looking for deeper and deeper meaning and purpose. You never stop looking for deeper meaning, deeper purpose, deeper meaning, deeper purpose, more wisdom, more learning, more wisdom, more learning.

that step by step, these smaller goals, or these worldly, we would say, worldly goals, can actually lead us to the highest goal, the highest purpose. That's what happened with Santiago, right?

He dreams of treasure, just gold, money. But he has to take a lot of leaps of faith, right? He has to take a lot of risks. The first risk is selling the sheep, just believing the dream and going into this strange land over to North Africa, to Morocco.

Right, and then he's got his money stolen, right? And then he's got a lot of difficult problems happen. And then his next goal, again, it seems like a small goal, like just a normal goal, is, oh, I've got to make money. I've got to make money again.

I need a job. So he gets the job at the tea shop, the crystal shop. But he keeps learning, right? He's challenged. He keeps learning. And he keeps thinking about purpose.

He keeps thinking about that dream. And he keeps observing and trying to learn. Not just learn how to make money, but learn about everything in life. Become wiser.

And so he helps. He learns all those business skills and the tea shop and the crystals. But he also is learning about life in general. He's getting more wise.

He's listening to his intuition and understanding his intuition more. He's looking deeper and deeper inside himself. And so when he finally gets all that money from the tea shop, he decides to keep going. This is a key message from Coelho too.

You've got to keep going on this journey that you're having in life. You can't avoid the challenges. You can't turn back. If you turn back, you lose the treasure, the real treasure, which is this wisdom, this enlightenment, this awakening, this meaning.

He keeps going, right? And then as he keeps going, of course, then he starts gaining ever more wisdom. This is when he learns finally about alchemy. It's not until he's in the desert with the Englishman, and that's when he first hears about alchemy and starts learning about that.

And this alchemy is going to be one way he learns more about wisdom. But then again, we get the same message from Coelho about the alchemists themselves, how the master alchemists, again, they started with this seemingly shallow goal, right? Not

Not a spiritual goal. Their goal was, let's make some money! We're going to get lead, we're going to get some metal, and we're going to turn it into gold. Yes!

But again, with the alchemist, right? He gave us this message by showing us that the master alchemists, because they became so focused on that goal, they had to work so hard

They had to have so much discipline, mental discipline, emotional discipline, that it led them to wisdom, that it led them to purify their minds and their hearts.

It led them to the real treasure. Truth, meaning, beauty. Right? You can think about this yourself. When I talk about purpose and meaning, a lot of people get excited about it.

I'll get a lot of great messages on social media about it. It's a popular topic. At the same time, I also will get comments from people asking, very frequently I get comments, how do I find my purpose? I don't have a purpose.

I don't know what my purpose is. I don't feel any purpose at all. I don't feel any meaning in my life at all. Nothing deeper. I don't know what to do.

These comments are especially common with younger people. I'd say, you know, people kind of, especially like 18 to 28, let's say. Late teens and early 20s. It's a tough time in our modern world.

where a lot of people have to ask this question. But it's not only younger people. It's people of all ages who struggle with this question of purpose and meaning.

And the most common question is, how do I find it? I don't have any feeling of purpose or deeper meaning. So, AJ, how do I find it? I mean, how do you find it?

If you don't have it, where do you get it? Where does it come from? And how do you decide what to do with your life if you're feeling that? Well, Coelho is giving us a practical advice.

He's giving us practical advice. He's giving us a practical solution to this, which I think is a good one. We can learn from this, especially if you have this problem, this question.

Remember, Santiago did not start. His goal was not salvation. His goal was not enlightenment. His goal was not to become a master alchemist. His goal was not to achieve the highest wisdom.

His goal was not peace of mind. None of that. His goal was straight up money. Gold, right? But it was a dream. It was an inspired goal. that came from deep, deep inside of him.

And it was a goal that was connected to learning and adventure and risk. He wasn't dreaming of power and control and that kind of stuff. But still, you know, it was a really basic goal. He was just enthusiastic.

He had this strong dream. He was enthusiastic about it, and he decided to go for it, to try it, to try to get it. And I think that's a good message. So basically, you start where you are.

You start where you are now. And if you're just lost, what should I do? Well, just look at your life. Look at your emotions, your thoughts. And what...

are you enthusiastic about? What are you very enthusiastic about? What makes you feel very, very happy when you do it? And start there. Start there. That's the direction you need to go.

It might be something really small. It might not feel like it's some gigantic purpose. That's okay. Maybe you do love the idea of business, doing business, having your own business, being free.

For me, it was travel. It was travel. That's what it started with way back when I was in my 20s. It was travel. I wanted to see the world. I just had this deep, intuitive, enthusiastic attraction.

I've got to see the world. I've got to experience the world. It's not enough just to read. I don't want to just read it. I want to see it. I want to see what India is like.

I want to feel it. I want to taste the food. I want to be there. And then it expanded from India into lots of different places. But I want to know this world that I'm living on.

That's where it started for me and that led me to much, much, much deeper things and has continued to do so. And so now it's the same thing. I've arrived, not quite an enlightenment, but I have arrived at certainly a deeper purpose where just traveling now, it's not my purpose, right?

I needed that when I was young, though. I needed that goal to get me closer to something deeper. I still like traveling, but my goals and my focus and my purpose is much, much deeper and more spiritual now.

But if you don't have that, you start where you are. And it's okay to start with something. As long as it's not hurting other people, right? As long as it's not going to hurt you or other people.

And as long as you're going to gain, you know, you're going to be challenged, you're going to have to grow stronger and wiser by trying to do whatever it is you're thinking about, then do it.

Move that direction and see what happens. Because what often happens is that one decision leads to another and then to another and then to another and you never really know where it's going to go. You might be surprised how far you go after you make that first step.

You might be surprised at how deep and how big the goals and the missions and the purpose becomes starting from a first one That seems quite small. In fact, I'd say this is probably the most common mistake or frustration that people make when they start this, when they start asking this question. It's a great question to ask yourself.

What's my purpose? What's the purpose of my life? What are my deeper missions, the deeper purpose of my life? It's really great. That's fantastic. But then people become frustrated because they think they

They can't think of anything. So then next they start thinking of, well, what am I enthusiastic about? What do I really enjoy? And then the answer they get seems so small.

Oh, I enjoy being outdoors. I enjoy traveling. I enjoy computers. Whatever it is. That seems so small. It's not like knowing God or achieving enlightenment or something huge like that, right?

leading my nation, right? It just seems so small and little. And so sometimes people just push that to the side. They think, well, that's little. That can't be.

It's too small. It seems meaningless. No, no, no, no, no. That's where you start. That's where you start. Don't try to force yourself to start with a goal or a purpose or a mission that's bigger just because you think you should.

Don't try to force yourself to do that. Don't force it. This is not something that should be forced. It really should be something that you're pulled to, that you're attracted to.

Santiago is attracted to, pulled to the pyramids. He doesn't have to force himself to do it. And as he just keeps going deeper and deeper, it's not like he's forcing himself to do that. He's just natural.

Just by continuing to try to learn and grow and following this mission, it just seems like the meaning and the purpose get deeper and deeper and stronger and stronger. It's a natural process. You have to trust that, have faith in that.

So just start with something small that you really love and you're really enthusiastic about. Maybe you love drawing, so you just start drawing and you focus on drawing.

It doesn't mean you don't have to become Michelangelo. You don't have to become a professional artist. You don't even have to become a practicing artist. It's just the first step.

You're enthusiastic about drawing, so do it. You never know where that might connect to. Maybe just because of drawing, this causes you to meet somebody who's through that.

Through that enjoyment of drawing, you meet someone and that opens up another opportunity that goes in a different direction that you can never expect. You don't try to plan out the whole journey.

I think that's the point. with Coelho and in general. Don't try to plan out the whole path. Be open to surprises. Let yourself be surprised. You're going to be surprised by challenges and difficulties.

That's okay. It's necessary, as we have discussed. You'll also be surprised by unexpected opportunities, meeting unexpected, great, wonderful people, unexpected new intuitions, new ideas,

new innovations, new creativity. Let that happen. That's part of the journey. That's part of the adventure. That's part of what makes it fun is that surprise.

You've got to be open to that inspiration. When you try to plan the whole big thing from the beginning, when you try to choose some gigantic, super huge purpose that you're not really feeling, you're not really enthusiastic about,

You're just doing it because you think that's what you're supposed to do. Then you try to plan it all out and try to plan out every step. You kill the magic. You kill the magic because you're trying to control it too much.

A lot of the magic is in the surprises. So start where you are. The best question to ask is just, what am I really enthusiastic about right now? What am I enthusiastic about?

And it doesn't matter how small it is. It can be tiny. Okay? It doesn't have to be connected to a job or making money. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to seem creative.

It doesn't have to seem meaningful. It certainly doesn't have to be spiritual in any way. Just... Be sure it doesn't hurt you or anyone else. That's all.

Cause is no harm. That's the main rule. Other than that, just explore it. That's part of it, too. And maybe you try that one thing you're enthusiastic about, and it leads somewhere.

You learn a few things, you try it a little bit, and then your enthusiasm kind of stops. But it leads, it connects to something else. I've talked about my nephew who does this, right? You know, he started with mushrooms.

Crazy, super enthusiastic about mushrooms. But then that led him to plants in general. And that has led him to insects and bugs. And now, currently, he's focused on shells.

Seashells. Seashells by the seashore. Right? Each enthusiasm leads him to another. See, that's part of the process, too. Let it happen. Right? Santiago, he started with

the treasure the enthusiasm for the treasure and then he ended up getting enthusiastic about tea and crystal just because he had to get that job and he ended up becoming quite enthusiastic and quite good at it he didn't expect that he never imagined that when he was in Spain he also didn't imagine alchemy and learning about alchemy or meeting an alchemist he didn't imagine any of that stuff

It's fun to be surprised by these things. Our lives, modern lives, are too predictable anyway. We need a little more surprise. So choose something you're enthusiastic about and just go for it.

Learn about it. Try it. And most importantly, do it. Do it. Even if you're bad at it, just do it. Just do it, do it, do it. As long as you're feeling enthusiastic about it and loving it,

just do it and just see what happens and who knows you may end up like Santiago finding a very big and deep purpose indeed alright we will finish this book up this weekend go ahead and finish reading it if you haven't finished reading it please do I'm going to go for a walk

Oh, you know, one more thing. So I've been talking to you here next to the canal. There's a canal. It's an artificial river. And one of the interesting things I should tell you also about Osaka.

I forgot to mention this at the beginning of the show. I was planning to tell you. One of the interesting things. On this canal, there's a little walk.

Like a walking path on both sides. I've mentioned this before. I've been here before Anyway, one of the interesting things here is that on this canal, you will often see two guys, two guys, two young, usually young men, and they'll be talking to each other and jumping around and acting really stupid and crazy.

I'm looking at two right now that are doing this. This tall, skinny guy and this kind of shorter, little bit fat guy. And so as a visitor, you might walk by and you'll go, what? What the heck?

These guys are weird. What are they doing? And then you'll walk for another minute or two and then you'll find under a bridge two more guys. And they'll be doing the same thing.

They'll be jumping around and screaming and acting weird. And you're like, what the hell is this? Are these people crazy? What is going on here? What this is, is a unique part of Japanese culture, but especially Osaka culture.

These are comedians. These are comedians. These are usually amateur comedians, right? They're not professionals yet. They want to be professional comedians.

They want to become successful and famous, but they're not yet. That's why they're usually young, the ones you see. So what they're doing is they're practicing their little show. They're practicing their jokes, right?

And this specifically is a kind of Japanese comedy, and again, especially famous in Osaka. These comedy teams, where it's two guys. I've mentioned this before in other shows. These comedy teams.

And usually these comedy teams have... There's kind of the foolish guy, usually. One guy's the fool... And the other guy is what's called the straight man, right?

He's the guy that pretends to be the more serious one, right? Or the smart one. And then the other guy is kind of the foolish one and the crazy one. There's different variations to this.

But it's a very famous and a very common kind of comedy here in Osaka. And there's a lot, a lot of young men. who want to become famous. It's kind of like in America, maybe you might see a lot of guys rapping, like black guys especially.

In some neighborhoods, they'll be practicing outdoors or somewhere. Or sometimes you'll see guys doing break dancing, different kinds of street dancing. Well, here, you'll often see these guys doing comedy. And so they're practicing their comedy routine.

So right now, the two guys, to my left, I saw two guys practicing And then down to my right, I can hear two people yelling, and it sounds like it's just some crazy people.

If I was in San Francisco, I would guess they were, you know, homeless and crazy or drug addicts. But because I'm in Osaka, I'm guessing, no, probably not. They're probably comedians. They're practicing their show, their performance.

And it's hard to do because it's loud. They have to act crazy. So it's hard for them to do this in their apartments. Most people in the city here live in small apartments.

So if they do this, all their neighbors will get mad if they're doing this indoors at their house. If they're living with their parents, their parents are going to be quiet. So they have to come out here in public. This area next to the river is nice because it's kind of open.

It's not too crowded so they can find a little spot under a bridge or next to a bridge and practice their comedy routines. So if you come to Osaka, if you see two people jumping around and acting weird and yelling and stuff, that's what it is.

All right. I'll see you again soon. As always, join my VIP program. Speak English powerfully. Commit to my VIP program. Train your English to think in English, to speak effortlessly.

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