A while ago I read the book ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ from Robin Sharma. It is an interesting book, which teaches you a lot of valuable life lessons. In this article I will talk about the book and what you can learn from it. I think it is a must read for people who are into personal development books. In general, there are many people who can benefit from reading it.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: a quick preview
So the book is about a man around 40 years old called Julian Mantle. He was a lawyer and made a lot of money. He had a very expensive and fast lifestyle, and he always wanted to make more money. At some point, he couldn’t cope with his fast lifestyle anymore and almost got a heart attack. He felt very depressed and didn’t have many true friends anymore. Therefore, he decided to quit his job and sell all his belongings, including his Ferrari. He took a trip to the Himalayas in India. There he went to a monastery, learned very important life lessons, and became a monk. He then went back to the U.S. and taught these valuable lessons to his former colleague John.
Important lessons
The first important lesson that I have learned from this book, is that you should take care of your mind. Treat it the same way as your body. Just like it is beneficial to train your body, the same is true for your mind. You can train it by doing simple exercises, such as meditating or reading books. By doing that, you take a real moment for yourself. The purpose of training your mind is that you mentally become more stable and stronger. As a result, you can deal with your emotions and don’t get involved with negative thoughts.
This will give you more energy and clarity, so that you can figure out what your main purpose is. That brings us to the next valuable lesson. In order to live a fulfilled life, Julian says that you should have a clear purpose and focus on it. That way your life will become simpler. If you know what your life goal is, you become happier and have less intrusive thoughts.
Another important lesson is that you should live in the present moment. Do not think too much about the past or future, because ultimately there only is a present moment. Many times I worry about things that happened in the past or could happen in the future. Because of that, I forget to enjoy the present moment, while there is actually nothing wrong in the present. It is simply useless to worry about the past and future. If you can become aware of that, your life will become much easier.
All in all, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a book that I would recommend to everyone. If you enjoy book reviews like this one, also check out my review of Atomic Habits.
Have a nice day,
Mart Bergsma
