The Alchemist - Paolo Coelho

"For me, The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho marks a special place in my life. It was a transitional time when I was 22 years old. I found myself becoming dissatisfied with dogmatic religious perspectives that had ruled my life. On a whim, while on vacation at the parent's house of my girlfriend at the time I picked up this book out of boredom. A few hours later I was halfway through it and totally entranced in the story.

It was a simple enough story, yet the characters and events resonated with me in a way that I had not experienced in my then-limited exposure to personal development literature. At the same time, I was experiencing cognitive dissonance as what was written within the story conflicted with my paradigm at that time. Still, there was something intuitive about the way I kept reading the book - that still small voice that was saying ""there is more than one truth out there..."" Michael J. Emery is a Personal Development Coach in Portland, OR. He is available for international telephone and video coaching. Visit www.michaeljemery.com to learn more! Michael J. Emery's life coaching background includes Ericksonian Hypnosis, Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), Humanistic Neuro-linguistic Psychology, and Transpersonal Psychology."