Book SummaryThe Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin Sharma

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari teaches a series of lessons about how to live a simple, fulfilling, and ultimately happy life. The lessons are given in the form of a parable, as Julian—once a wealthy lawyer, now a much poorer but much happier monk—teaches a former colleague named John what he’s learned.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari provides a basic grounding in core concepts of spirituality and self-improvement, such as inner peace and the interconnectedness of all life. Many of the book’s teachings draw upon Buddhist beliefs and practices, like meditation and accepting each moment as it comes; however, it’s written with secular readers in mind.

Death and Rebirth

After suffering a heart attack mid-trial, famous lawyer Julian Mantle gives up practicing law and travels to India to find meaning and balance in his life.

Three years later he comes back, happier and healthier than he’s been in decades. His transformation amazes his former colleague, John. Julian promises to teach John what he’s learned in his time away, so that John can experience a similar change.

The lessons in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari all relate to living a peaceful, healthy, and fulfilling life. The main virtues that Julian teaches John are:

• Maintain your health—both physical and mental
• Find a purpose
• Improve yourself
• Practice self-control
• Manage your time
• Serve others
• Live in the moment

This guide compares Sharma’s teachings about inner peace and fulfillment with other spiritual traditions and self-help literature. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari offers a brief overview of many different spiritual ideas and practices; we’ll connect to other sources where you can read about those ideas in more detail, or compare them to similar teachings from different traditions.

Sharma introduces these seven virtues with a short fable, which seems nonsensical at first:

The Garden Fable

Imagine that you’re sitting in a beautiful garden, with a red lighthouse at the center. Out of the lighthouse comes an enormous sumo wrestler, who is naked except for a pink wire cable worn as underwear. He finds a gold watch and puts it on, then immediately falls to the ground unconscious. He is soon awakened by the smell of nearby roses and leaps to his feet with renewed energy. He looks to his left and sees a path of diamonds stretching into the distance. He follows the path and it leads him to eternal happiness.

Each of the seven virtues is represented by a metaphor in the story. Most of the rest of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is dedicated to explaining and exploring those metaphors.

Religions and other spiritual traditions often teach through stories like this one. Even the Bible, perhaps the most influential religious text in history, is commonly considered to be allegorical or metaphorical, rather than literal.

Instead of directly telling you what the lessons are, such traditions rely on imagery and metaphors to get the student thinking for him or herself. The student, guided by the teacher, must then explore the metaphors and find the lessons within them.

When you personally engage with the material, rather than memorizing lessons by rote, you’re more likely to remember and apply the lessons.

Tend the Garden of Your Mind

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. This is the first of the seven virtues. 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.

Gardens are typically metaphors for paradise: beautiful places that are free from pain. The most famous example of this metaphor is the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived in perfect happiness before the fall of humanity.

However, while Eden was a garden that God created and maintained, Sharma makes it clear that you’re responsible for your own mental “garden.”

Thus, Sharma uses the garden metaphor to deliver two messages at once:

• Your mind can be a paradise, but—

• You have to work to make it one

Your mind is the one thing in the world that you have total control of. You can’t always control what happens, but you can control how you respond to it. Therefore, learning how to manage your thoughts is key to learning how to manage your life.

However, to master your mind you have to train it, just like you would work to strengthen a muscle. Two powerful mental exercises are meditation and Opposition Thinking.

Meditation

In simple terms, meditation is the practice of sitting quietly and thinking about a particular topic. However, it requires absolute focus on that topic, which is more difficult than it seems. At first, you might find it hard to sit for even 10 minutes without getting distracted by unrelated thoughts, or by what’s going on around you.

By meditating daily, you’ll achieve greater control over your mind and your thoughts—those unrelated thoughts will intrude less often, and you’ll be able to dismiss them more easily when they do. You’ll find that ability carries over into your regular life as well: You’ll focus more easily and think more deeply than you could before, and you’ll be better able to keep your thoughts from wandering.

A candle meditation is a traditional exercise for people who are just beginning to learn how to meditate.

In a candle meditation, you light a candle and stare at it. While doing this, you focus completely on the...

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Shortform Introduction

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a parable centered on Julian, a hotshot-lawyer-turned-monk, and his former colleague John. Julian shares with John what he’s learned from studying with the Sages of Sivana, a near-mythological group of monks in India who know the secrets to enlightenment.

Julian’s lessons range from gaining control of your thoughts, to finding a purpose in life, to properly managing your time so that you can achieve that purpose. All of this works toward the ultimate goal of living a simple, fulfilling, and happy life.

About the Author

Robin Sharma is a world-renowned author, speaker, life coach, and leadership expert. He was born in Uganda to Indian parents, Shiv and Shashi Sharma. The family moved to Canada during Sharma’s childhood.

Sharma started his career as a litigation lawyer, but he found the work unfulfilling. He quit law and self-published his first self-help book, MegaLiving: 30 Days to a Perfect Life, in 1994.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari was Sharma’s second book, and it became a worldwide hit. With this book’s success, Sharma found himself in...

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapters 1-6: Death and Rebirth

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a parable, a story meant to teach a lesson. It seeks to teach readers different methods to manage their thoughts, their time, and their lives. By following these lessons, Sharma promises that you can find personal fulfillment and inner peace.

The book contains several parables layered on top of each other: Julian, a lawyer-turned-monk, tells a former colleague named John about his travels in India and how he learned to master himself and take back control of his life. He has a lot to teach, and John is willing to learn.

Within the Julian-John story is another layer about Julian’s time in India, where he studied with the Sages of Sivana and learned the secrets of enlightenment. Within that story is a fable Julian learned from his primary teacher, Yogi Raman. Raman’s story contains metaphors for the seven main lessons Julian learned from the Sages, and which John (and, by extension, the reader) will now learn from Julian.

John and the Great Julian Mantle

Julian Mantle is a successful, famous, and wealthy lawyer. He seems to have it all: a mansion, expensive Armani suits, a private island, and his prized red Ferrari.

However,...

Shortform Exercise: Take a Personal Inventory

Julian’s old lifestyle and the Sages’ lifestyle illustrate two different extremes: The first is a life of stress, overindulgence, and materialism, while the second is a simple, balanced, and fulfilling lifestyle. Take a few minutes now to think about where you fall on the spectrum from Julian’s old life to the lives that the Sages of Sivana lead.

Think back on the past week. Name one thing that was a major source of stress for you.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 7: The Garden—Your Mind

The garden from Yogi Raman’s story is a metaphor for your mind. Gardens must be properly cared for and cultivated in order to grow, and the same is true of minds.

However, many people’s mental gardens are contaminated with their fears and insecurities. Therefore, just as gardeners fiercely protect their gardens, you must stand guard over your mind and let only the right kinds of thoughts enter. In short, managing your mind is the key to managing your life.

Gardens are typically metaphors for paradise: beautiful places that are free from pain. The most famous example of this metaphor is the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived in perfect happiness before the fall of humanity.

However, while Eden was a garden that God created and maintained, Sharma makes it clear that you’re responsible for your own mental “garden.”

Thus, Sharma uses the garden metaphor to deliver two messages at once:

• Your mind can be a paradise, but—

• You have to work to make it one

(Shortform note: From this point onward, we’ll focus more on teaching lessons than on explicitly telling Julian’s story. For those sections...

Shortform Exercise: Try the Heart of the Rose

All of these exercises begin with clearing your mind. The Heart of the Rose is a simple mind-clearing exercise that anyone can do.

Find a nearby object—it doesn’t matter what—and pick it up. Take five minutes to sit quietly and concentrate on that object. Observe everything about it: shape, color, texture, even scent. Don’t try to fight against intruding thoughts. Instead, acknowledge and then dismiss them. At the end of the five minutes, write down how you feel.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 8: The Lighthouse—Purpose

In this section we discuss the lighthouse from Raman’s fable, which represents purpose. As we said in the last chapter, a purpose in life is one of the keys to happiness: Like a lighthouse guides ships through dangerous waters, your purpose guides you through your life.

(Shortform note: Light (and, by extension, a lighthouse) is a common symbol in religious texts as well as literary ones. Christianity in particular frequently refers to Jesus as a guiding light, and the purpose of Christianity is to serve Jesus. Regardless of your own religious leanings (or lack of them), this example shows how a clear purpose can guide you through life.)

In Limitless, Jim Kwik talks about dominant questions: questions that you ask yourself so that you’ll focus on relevant information. Your purpose is like a dominant question for your entire life.

For example, if you’re looking to buy a new car, your dominant question might be, “What’s the best car for me?” With that question in mind, your brain will naturally search for information about cars that...

Shortform Exercise: Begin Your Search

It’s time to begin searching for your own Dharma, and the first step is to set goals. Remember that enjoying the process is crucial—you won’t reach your destination if every step feels like a chore.

Write down a single, specific goal for yourself, and a reasonable timeframe to achieve it. The goal could be from any part of your life, but should represent an improvement that you want to make.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 9: The Sumo Wrestler—Kaizen

The sumo wrestler from Yogi Raman’s story represents kaizen: a Japanese word that can be translated as continuous self-improvement. Practicing kaizen includes boosting your discipline, confidence, health, and optimism.

(Shortform note: The word kaizen usually refers to improving a company, rather than a person. For example, Toyota is known for its company culture of kaizen. However, whether it’s applied to a multinational corporation or an individual, the principle is the same: improving a little bit every day.)

To understand this metaphor, remember that sumo wrestlers are athletes, even though they don’t have the trim and toned builds that Western cultures typically associate with athleticism.

Athletes commonly represent human perfection—ideals that people should aspire to. However, in this fable, Sharma is more concerned with how athletes become...

Shortform Exercise: Practice a Ritual

Choose one of the 10 Rituals for Health and Happiness. Pick the one that speaks most to you at this moment.

Which Ritual did you choose, and why?

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 10: The Cable—Self-Control

We now return to Yogi Raman’s fable of the garden and the next metaphor. The sumo wrestler’s pink wire cable represents discipline.

Wire cables are made of many thin wires wrapped around each other. Together, these weak wires become very strong. Discipline is like a wire cable: Many small actions and habits reinforce each other to create immense inner strength.

Sharma argues that you need discipline and willpower to keep your commitments and build your character. They’re what will enable you to perform the Ten Rituals every day, and they’ll give you the mental fortitude to handle life’s everyday challenges and unexpected problems.

(Shortform note: You might already have some of the wires that will eventually form your cable. If you’ve started practicing some of the Rituals for Health and Happiness, or if you have other habits that keep you fit and focused, then you’ve already begun building your wire cable of discipline!)

How to Build Discipline

Sharma believes anyone can build discipline and willpower relatively quickly. Even simple chores like making your bed and doing the dishes are effective exercises to build discipline.

Small victories like doing your...

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 11: The Watch—Time

The watch from Yogi Raman’s story symbolizes time. Specifically, it represents the understanding that your time is limited and precious.

Sharma maintains that those who use their limited time wisely and productively will lead rich, full lives.

Clocks are a symbol of time, for obvious reasons. Specifically, they’re often a metaphor for limited time—Sharma is saying that your life is finite, and therefore so is the time that you have to work with.

When the sumo wrestler from the fable picks up the stopwatch, he immediately faints; he’s overwhelmed by the realization that his time is limited. The way to avoid the overwhelm that he experienced is to make the most of what time you have, and live a life that you’ll be satisfied with (as you’ll see with the next metaphor, the roses).

How Julian Manages His Time

John mentions that he once heard the busiest people are the ones with time to spare. Julian agrees, saying that **the most productive people aren’t the...

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 12: The Roses—Helping Others

The roses that awaken the sumo wrestler in Raman’s fable represent service to others. They reference an old Chinese proverb, which says that a bit of perfume will stay on the hand that gives away a rose. In other words, by being kind to others you’ll improve your own life as well.

Sharma argues that quality of life doesn’t come from a big home or a fast car. You had nothing when you were born, and—no matter how rich you become—you’ll have nothing after you die. Therefore, working only for yourself is pointless. Rather, true quality of life comes from what you give back to the world, and the real reason you exist is to serve others.

You’re born crying while the world celebrates; you should die celebrating while the world cries. In other words, live a life that you’ll be happy with, and that others will be sad to lose.

Sharma cites an old Chinese proverb that a sweet scent lingers on a hand that gives away a rose. In other words, when you do good deeds for others (like giving them flowers), you also benefit personally (the scent stays on your hand).

...

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Summary Chapter 13: The Path of Diamonds—Living in the Moment

The last metaphor from Yogi Raman’s fable is the path of diamonds, which represents living in the moment: fully experiencing and enjoying each moment as it comes and goes. According to the parable of the garden, the diamond path leads to happiness.

However, the path stretches out into the distance because happiness is a process, not a goal. In other words, you’ll never reach a point where you’re “happy” and don’t need to pursue happiness anymore.

Sharma notes that, while it’s important to have goals and dreams, don’t sacrifice the little joys and pleasures of life to reach them. Live your life now, not at some uncertain time in the future like after retirement or winning the lottery.

The path of diamonds is a reference to Vajrayana Buddhism (vajrayana can be translated as “diamond path” or “diamond way”). Vajrayana teaches that there’s no clear distinction between what people might call good and bad, or holy and profane—it teaches you to accept things for what they are, instead of judging and labeling them. By doing so, you remain present and focused, rather than lost in your own thoughts and...