The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Robin Sharma

Summary in 100 words or less

The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Spend the time to define what's meaningful and set goals accordingly. To succeed in life, cultivate positive mindsets and mental toughness in order to stay optimistic and learn from setbacks. Happiness comes from progress. To grow, develop the courage to embrace uncertainties and focus on pushing yourself daily to make incremental improvements.

Commentary

My Highlights

Cultivate your mind, it will blossom your expectations.

There are no mistakes in life, only lessons. There’s no such thing as a negative experience, but only opportunity to grow, learn and advance along the road of self-mastery.

To transcend pain, you must first experience it.

Success on the outside begins with the success on the inside.

The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to cause greater than oneself.

Daily incremental improvements produce lasting results, which in turn lead to positive change.

One must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of like is a miracle and a mystery.

Never get into the petty habit of measuring your self-worth against other people’s net worth.

You will never be able to hit a target that cannot see. People spend their whole lives dreaming of becoming happier, living with more vitality and having an abundance of passion. Yet they do not see the importance of taking even ten minutes a month to write out their goals and to think deeply about the meaning of their lives.

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

Practice the art of Kaizen by pushing yourself daily to make incremental improvements consistently.

Courage allows you to run your own race, to do whatever you want to do because you know that it is right, and gives you the self-control to persist where others have failed.

People grow the most when they enter the Zone of the Unknown.

The only limits on your life are those that you set yourself. When you dare to get out your circle of comfort and explore the unknown, you start to liberate your true human potential.

Fear is nothing more than a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consciousness.

Happiness comes through the progressive realization of a worthy objective.

Self-awareness, the very quality that separates humans from animals. Only a human being can step out of himself and analyze what he is doing right and what he is doing wrong. A dog cannot do this. A bird cannot do this. Even a monkey cannot do it. But you can.

You sow a thought, you reap an action. Reap an action, you sow a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character. Sow a character, you reap your destiny.

Failure is not having the courage to try, nothing more and nothing less. The only thing standing between most people and their dreams is the fear of failures. Yet failure is essential to success in any endeavor.

Implement small positive punishment to harness your discipline.

The more you nurture the embryo of self-discipline, the more it will mature.

Time is the most precious commodity and it’s non-renewable. Focus on your priorities and maintain the balance by simplifying your life.

The quality of your life ultimately comes down to the quality of your contribution. Live every day to contribute and to give.

Life doesn’t always give you what you ask for, but it always gives you what you need.

To achieve true happiness, embrace the present, live in the now, and savor the journey and live each day as your last.

More book notes

High Performance Habits
10-Minute Toughness
The Champion’s Mind
Smartcuts
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Get my email delivered to your inbox once in a while

Three to five things I learned—that will help you work less, earn more, and live a better life. (Also get notified of new posts and masterclasses)

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

👆 Join 3,100+ leaders, creatives, and knowledge workers today.

Dean is a strong voice in the self-mastery space. His newsletter consistently delivers insightful ideas on how to become a better version of yourself and is the only newsletter that I always read.

Sebastian Kade

Head of product and engineering