Go Ask Sawyer
Go Ask Sawyer
Unlocking Your Personal Legend
Our journaling series continues with an exploration of how to identify and pursue your "personal legend," inspired by Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.
• Three-minute brain dump exercise to clear your mind
• Reflecting on faith, cutting cords, and trusting your path
• Identifying dreams that feel "stupidly big" yet call to you
• Visualizing in detail what life would look like living your dream
• Recognizing what stands in your way (usually ourselves)
• Taking one concrete step today toward your personal legend
• Reconnecting with childhood dreams that may reveal your true calling
• Looking for signs—like moments of peace and unexpected joy—that confirm you're on the right path
Journal prompts:
- What is a dream that feels so stupidly big that it scares you?
- If I were living that life right now, how would you be moving, talking, or acting?
- If I were living that dream right now, what would it feel like or look like? What colors might you see, what music would you hear, or what things might you see?
- What is one action you could take today to start moving toward your dream?
- What is standing in your way?
Book: "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho
Stay cute, stay kind, stay loud and keep dancing, even when everyone is watching.
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Good morning, happy Sunday, welcome back to Go Ask Sawyer. My name is Jamie, your host of Go Ask Sawyer, and this is our journaling series that we are in. Just a nice way to be able to have some sort of guide as you're writing, dumping your brain out. For people who have been journaling for a long time, this could be a great new direction for people who have never journal time. This could be a great new direction for people who have never journaled. This might be a great place just to start. For those of us that are in those stuck moments in life, this could be a maybe just an excuse, like Sundays, I journal. So here's what I need from you to get started A journal and something to write with or your notes app, however you feel like writing. Today, I'm going to ask you to set your timer for three minutes and I'm going to have you press pause and you're just going to dump out your brain. You are going to write whatever you want for three minutes without stopping, so the goal is to hopefully try to not even pick up your pen or pencil off the table or, sorry, off the paper. So to get us started, set that timer for three minutes, take a deep breath and press pause here. Welcome back. I hope that was good. I hope that was nice.
Speaker 1:Maybe you learned something new about yourself. Maybe you just needed a moment of clarity to let it all go. So last week we talked about faith what kind of like walking in faith looks like, kind of that walking into a dark room and having faith in yourself that you will find the light switch before you fall. We talked about cutting cords with places, people, events, things that just no longer serve us, and we just talked about not giving a fuck anymore. That episode, even for me, felt like a huge release and I started thinking a lot about places in my life where I have cut the cord and places in my life where I still need to. Places in my life where I have cut the cord and places in my life where I still need to. Places in my life where I need to have more faith in myself, in God, in the universe, and really understanding that, as much as we all hate the everything happens for a reason saying I absolutely hate that, I get it and I love it, but I also just hate it, especially when it comes to things that are just like heartbreaking right, like the loss of someone through death, through moving away, through unfair circumstances, even like people that lose their jobs unexpectedly or homes unexpectedly become homeless. Everything going on in our political world right now. That just seems so crazy. Like how do we have faith that this is all supposed to happen and beautiful or great things will come from it? So where in our life do we need to have kind of more of that blind faith faith in ourselves? And it led me to I'm Reading the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Currently. It is my third read.
Speaker 1:I had seen a lady on TikTok talking about how she reads this book every year in January and I found my copy. Well, actually I found two copies that I had and I realized my original one. I had already read it twice and so when I started leafing back through it, I realized I had annotated in it and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool because it's like little love notes to yourself. Like when you go back and read something you've already read and you've made notes in it, you're like, oh dang, you're so smart, I would have picked that too. And you're like wait a minute, I already did, but I digress. So today I actually wanted to read.
Speaker 1:I wanted to focus on us you, me, my five listeners Thank you, guys for showing up on Sundays or Wednesdays or Thursdays or whenever you listen to this but I really wanted to focus on our personal legend right In the alchemist and the alchemist. The whole story is about our personal legend, like staying on the path we're supposed to be on, and every time we get distracted from where we're supposed to be, it's just taking us longer to get to that final place, that final goal, that what we were meant for. But so often we get that job that we thought would be great or we meet that person that we're like this is the love of my life, but we're not supposed to like be with them yet or meet them yet along the way. So I really want you to think about and maybe you could even press pause at the end of these questions just to jot them down. Write them down.
Speaker 1:Number one what is a dream that feels so stupidly big that it scares the bejesus out of me? What is a dream that feels so stupidly big that it scares the bejesus out of me? What is a dream that feels so stupidly big it scares the bejesus out of me If I were living that life right now? How would I be moving, talking differently If I were living that dream right now? How would I be moving or talking differently If I were living that dream right now? How would I be moving or talking differently If I were living that dream right now? What would that feel like Like? Sit with that one for a second In your journal, write down.
Speaker 1:If I were living this crazy, ginormous dream right now, in this moment, what would I be feeling? Would it be a sense of joy? Would it be a sense of stress? Would it be a sense of this is insane? Would you look out your window and see mountains instead of a yard? Would you look out your window and see three kids playing in the yard and realize you don't have to go to work tomorrow? Would you look to your left and see your wife or husband making dinner and know that you're going to go for a walk later and this dream that you have is coming to a reality?
Speaker 1:And then the last question I want you to ask yourself is well, let's do two. One what would it take, what is one thing you could do today to start moving towards your dream? Okay, so example I have this insane dream that I am a famous podcaster and I write fiction and nonfiction books and I get to go around the world and be a speaker at different conventions or corporations and I lead retreats to help men and women learn how to fully love and embrace themselves. Like I've written this whole thing out, I feel like I am meant for this, and so I have just started showing up as if this is already happening. So I again podcasting every week, creating series, trying to do lives at Sunrise at Lake Michigan. I'm just starting to move, like it already is, and things are happening like little things Now that I can look back like little things are happening. But what is one thing you could do today that you could start moving in the way of your crazy big dream is already a reality. And then I want you to write down what are whatever one to four things that are standing in your way, and usually my first thing that's standing in my way is me. That is almost always the first thing that is standing in my way Me, self-doubt. Who do? I think I am Okay, we can get rid of that. What else is standing in your way? Write those things down, all right, so I'm going to read. I'm on pages 23 to just the top of 26. I'm also an English teacher as my side job, so I do a lot of read alouds.
Speaker 1:But our main character is on this journey to see the pyramids and he is meeting the King of Salem, and this is the message he gets that I feel like is very connected to this crazy big dream, or as he calls it, the personal legend. Okay, so the old man says I am the king of Salem. Why would a king be talking with a shepherd? The boy asked awed and embarrassed, for several reasons. But let's say that the most important is that you have succeeded in discovering your personal legend.
Speaker 1:The boy didn't know what a person's personal legend was. It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their personal legend is At some point in their lives. Everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their personal legend. None of what the old man was saying made much sense to the boy, but he wanted to know what the mysterious force was. The merchant's daughter would be impressed when he told her that it's a force that appears to be negative but actually shows you how to realize your personal legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet Whoever you are or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth, even when all you want to do is travel or marry the daughter of a textile merchant yes or even search for treasure, or marry the daughter of a textile merchant yes, or even search for treasure. The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness and also by unhappiness, envy and jealousy. To realize one's personal legend is a person's only real obligation. All things are one, and when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Speaker 1:They were both silent for a time, observing the plaza and the townspeople. It was the old man who spoke first. Why do you tend to a flock of sheep? Because I like to travel. Old man pointed to a baker standing in his shop window at one corner of the plaza when he was a child. That man wanted to travel too, but he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he's an old man, he's going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable at any time in their lives of doing what they dream of. He should have decided to become a shepherd, the boy said. Well, he thought about that. The old man said but bakers are more important people than shepherds. Bakers have homes while shepherds sleep out in the open. Parents would rather see their children marry bakers than shepherds. The boy felt a pang in his heart thinking about the merchant's daughter. There was surely a baker in her town. The old man continued in the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own personal legends. The old man leafed through the book and fell to reading a page he came to. The boy waited and then interrupted the old man, just as he himself had been interrupted.
Speaker 1:Why are you telling me all this? Because you're trying to realize your personal legend and you are at the point where you're about to give it all up. And that's when you always appear on the scene. The boy asks Not always in this way, but I always appear in one form or another. Sometimes I appear in the form of a solution or a good idea. At other times, at a crucial moment, I make it easier for things to happen. There are other things I do too, but most of the time people don't realize I've done them.
Speaker 1:What is your personal legend? What is something? And the reason I love these specific pages is because I think it reminds us that when we were kids, we had and I have stopped reading the book, just I didn't say that. I'm so sorry when we were kids, we had these ginormous dreams. We had these wants. Right, like it's funny, I'm a teacher. But when I was little, like in kindergarten, I used to set up a school room in my house and I handed out worksheets to my friends.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be a teacher. That's like the thing I wanted to do. I also wanted to be a writer. I used to write these stories, a lot of stories about the Philippine Islands. I was very obsessed with the Philippine Islands. My friends and I used to put on dance shows for our family, and then, somewhere along the way, you kind of lose sight of those dreams.
Speaker 1:I really believe that when we are kids, we know what we're supposed to do. And then the reality of being adult, and adult, the reality of like we got to make money. As I'm saying this, there is the most beautiful yellow butterfly flying by my window. I don't know if it's a sign I believe in all signs but what is your personal legend? Okay, I want you to go back to those questions that you I asked you to ask yourself. What is that crazy huge dream? If you were living it and you were looking outside your window, maybe, what would you see? How would you be feeling if you were living that huge dream? Like, get so specific.
Speaker 1:I've been really trying to get specific with different things in my life. Like so specific so that when that feeling comes, when I'm feeling that like immense peace or that crazy joy that just wraps around me and I smile without even trying, I feel like those are my signs. I'm like, yep, I'm on the right path. What is standing in your way and we all know number one is probably yourself. It's always me. Okay, it's me. What kind of talk do you have to have with yourself? What kind of reprogramming do you have to tell yourself, maybe it's you're worthy of it, maybe it's you do know more than you think you do. Maybe it's you are smarter and more talented and more creative than you could ever believe you were are. And then, what is one thing you could start doing today that makes you that? I'm already performing for millions of people, you guys. So let's make that a reality. What is your personal legend? All right, y'all. Stay cute, stay kind, stay loud and keep dancing, even when everyone is watching.
