This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" by Robin Sharma. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What are some The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes? How do these The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes highlight key concepts?
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is about a successful man who gives up everything for a simpler life. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes show some of the key lessons from Robin Sharma’s book.
Read on for 5 The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes to know.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Quotes
“A burning sense of passion is the most potent fuel for your dreams.”
The first of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes is about purpose. Everybody on Earth has a purpose, and special talents and gifts to help accomplish it. Fulfilling your own purpose is the only way to live a truly fulfilling life.
However, your purpose should be something that helps people in some way. Whether it’s teaching them the secrets of enlightenment, like Julian, or painting lovely pictures for them to enjoy, your purpose should somehow enrich the lives of others.
In order to feel fulfilling, your purpose must also be something that you’re passionate about. Passion is the most powerful fuel in the world, so always keep it at the front of your mind when you’re finding and striving toward your goals.
You can find your ultimate purpose in small steps by setting clear, specific goals for yourself in all areas of your life, then working steadily toward them. You should keep a notebook filled with goals, along with reasonable timeframes to achieve them.
“Remarkable people are priority-driven. This is the secret of time mastery. Build your days around your priorities and you will play in rare air.”
80 percent of what you achieve comes from 20 percent of what you do. Think about all the things you do in a day, then think about which of those things will have a lasting impact on your life. Most likely you’ll only come up with a few things that really matter in the long run. Those are the things to devote your time and energy to.
Rather than spend a stressful day scrambling to catch up on all the things you have to do, take 15 minutes the night before to plan your next day. Better yet, take an hour on your day off to plan your entire week.
Don’t just schedule your professional obligations, either. Make time for friends and family, for meditation and self-improvement, and always schedule time for yourself to rest. Write your schedule down, and make sure you stick to it. It’s human nature to put off or avoid unpleasant tasks, but the happiest people are those who accept short-term discomfort for long-term benefits.
“Success cannot be pursued; success ensues. It flows as the unintended byproduct of efforts concentrated in the direction of a worthy cause.”
The third of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes is about the concept of kaizen. The sumo wrestler is a metaphor for kaizen, a Japanese word that can be translated as continuous, endless self-improvement. In this case, it means constantly training and improving your inner self. Improving yourself is one key to improving your life.
Three things lead to a rich and balanced life:
- Strength of character: Cultivating understanding, empathy, and the desire to help others.
- Mental toughness: The ability to focus your mind and work tirelessly, but calmly, toward your goals.
- Courage: Fearlessly working to understand yourself and pursue your life’s purpose.
Cultivating these three qualities is the purpose of kaizen.
You can practice kaizen by continually pushing yourself past where you think your limits are. If you think you can only do 20 pushups, do 30. If you’re afraid of public speaking, volunteer to give a speech. Identify what fears and worries are holding you back, then face them head-on, day after day until you break through them.
“If you lack the mental focus to stay with one activity for any length of time, you will never be able to achieve your goals.”
This is one of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari quotes about focus. The beautiful garden is a metaphor for your mind. Just like you have to watch and tend a garden, you should watch and tend the thoughts that you allow into your mind. When you let your garden get polluted with worries and anxieties, you waste your mental energy and can cause serious long-term damage to your creativity, motivation, and even your general mood.
Finding your focus is crucial to finding your happiness. When you find something you truly love doing you’re able to concentrate fully on it, with no wasted energy. Then your work will feel like play, and will invigorate you rather than exhausting you.
“We live in an age when we have forgotten what life is all about.”
It’s important to have goals and dreams, as we’ve discussed before, but don’t sacrifice little joys and pleasures to achieve them. Live your life now, not at some uncertain time in the future like after you retire, or after you win the lottery. Money isn’t the key to happiness; living in the present and appreciating all it has to offer is. Many of the previous lessons will help you to focus on and appreciate the present, without being distracted by intrusive thoughts or worries.
The end goal of all these lessons is reaching Nirvana, a perfect state of being. A person in Nirvana is perfectly happy and content, sees the beauty and divinity in every little thing, and experiences no pain or fear. Anyone can attain Nirvana through small, incremental steps as laid out in the preceding lessons. All it takes is a bit of time and effort every day, and an open mind to learn all the lessons that life has to teach.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari summary :
- Why your career success might actually be killing you
- How to live a simple and fulfilling life
- The 10 rituals you should practice for health and healing
