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www.read.forumsplace.com praise for the monk who sold his ferrari the monk who sold his ferrari is a treasure an elegant and powerful formula for true success and happiness robin s sharma has captured the wisdom of the ages and made it relevant for these turbulent times i couldn t put it down joe tye author of never fear never quit a magnificent book robin s sharma is the next og mandino dottie walters author of speak and grow rich novel approach to self-help makes advice easy to take the liberal a wonderful story sharing lessons that can enrich your life ken vegotsky author of the ultimate power filled with insights about following your passion and living your dream a good read justine and michael toms cofounders of new dimensions radio and coauthors of true work the sacred dimension of earning a living robin sharma has created an enchanting tale that incorporates the classic tools of transformation into a simple philosophy of living a delightful book that will change your life elaine st james author of simplify your life and inner simplicity a fun fascinating fanciful adventure into the realms of personal development personal effectiveness and individual happiness it contains treasures of wisdom that can enrich and enhance the life of every single person brian tracy author of maximum achievement robin sharma has an important message for all of us one that can change our lives he s written a one-of-a-kind handbook for personal fulfillment in a hectic age scott degarmo past publisher success magazine a captivating story that teaches as it delights paulo coelho author of the alchemist

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www.read.forumsplace.com praise for megaliving megaliving teaches you how to make your life megamagnificent in only 30 delightful days mark victor hansen co-author of chicken soup for the soul i highly recommend this remarkable book to anyone truly interested in personal excellence and successful living peter hanson m.d author of the joy of stress megaliving 80 days to a perfect life is perhaps the ultimate in self-improvement books northwest arkansas times a brilliant book follow its wisdom for personal and spiritual success your life will change ken vegotsky author of the ultimate power robin s sharma has collected the best life strategies from mystics and wise men alike family circle for over ten years robin sharma has studied the success strategies of people leading unusually satisfying lives he s culled their routines and stories into a 30 day program which promotes lifelong success reviewer s book watch the perfect blend of east and west the kingston whig-standard change your life in 30 days eastern eye megaliving is a gem a great book for those who want to discover the power within investment executive

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www.read.forumsplace.com the monk who sold his ferrari a fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny robin s sharma harpersanfrancisco a division of harpercollins publishers

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www.read.forumsplace.com the monk who sold his ferrari a fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny copyright © 1997 by robin s sharma all rights reserved printed in the united states of america no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews for information address harpercollins publishers 10 east 53rd street new york ny 10022 harpercollins books may be purchased for educational business or sales promotional use for information please write special markets department harpercollins publishers 10 east 53rd street new york ny 10022 harpercollins web site http www.harpercollins.com harpercollins® and harpersanfrancisco are trademarks of harpercollins publishers inc all characters in this book are fictitious any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental first harpercollins paperback edition published in 1999 library of congress cataloging-in-publication data sharma robin s robin shilp 1964the monk who sold his ferrari a fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny/robin s sharma lst ed p cm originally published toronto haunsla corp 1996 isbn 0-06-251560-s cloth isbn 0-06-251567-5 pbk i title pr9199.3.s497m6 1998 813 54 dc21 98-13247 cip 03 ·rrd 20 19

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www.read.forumsplace.com to my son colby who is my daily reminder of all that is good in this world bless you.

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acknowledgments the monk who sold his ferrari has been a very special project brought to fruition through the efforts of some very special people i am deeply grateful to my superb production team and to all those whose enthusiasm and energy transformed my vision of this book into reality especially my family at sharma leadership international your commitment and sense of mission moves me i express special thanks · to the thousands of readers of my first book megaliving who graciously took the time to write to me and share how it changed their lives i also thank all those who have attended my public seminars across north america as well as sharma leadership international s many corporate clients who have been such wonderful sponsors of my speaking programs for their employees · to my editor john loudon for your belief in this book and for your faith in me thanks as well to margery buchanan karen levine and the rest of the superb team at harpersanfranciseo for investing your energies in this project · to brian tracy mark victor hansen and my other colleagues in the self-leadership field for your kindness · to kathi dunn for your brilliant cover design i thought nothing could top the timeless wisdom for self-mastery cover you did for us i was wrong · to satya paul krishna and sandeep sharma for your constant encouragement · and most of all to my wonderful parents shiv and shashi sharma who have guided and helped me from day one to my loyal and wise brother sanjay sharma m.d and his good wife susan to my daughter bianca for your presence to my son colby for your spirit and to my wife and best friend alka you are all the light that shows me the way www.read.forumsplace.com

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life is no brief candle for me it is a sort of splendid torch which i have got hold of for the moment and i want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations george bernard shaw www.read.forumsplace.com

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contents 1 the wake-up call 1 2 the mysterious visitor 8 3 the miraculous transformation of julian mantle 12 4 a magical meeting with the sages of sivana 24 5 a spiritual student of the sages 27 6 the wisdom of personal change 32 7 a most extraordinary garden 41 8 kindling your inner fire 72 9 the ancient art of self-leadership 93 10 the power of discipline 144 11 your most precious commodity 159 12 the ultimate purpose of life 173 13 the timeless secret of lifelong happiness 181 www.read.forumsplace.com

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the monk who sold his ferrari www.read.forumsplace.com

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chapter one the wake-up call he collapsed right in the middle of a packed courtroom he was one of this country s most distinguished trial lawyers he was also a man who was as well known for the three-thousand-dollar italian suits which draped his well-fed frame as for his remarkable string of legal victories i simply stood there paralyzed by the shock of what i had just witnessed the great julian mantle had been reduced to a victim and was now squirming on the ground like a helpless infant shaking and shivering and sweating like a maniac everything seemed to move in slow motion from that point on my god julian s in trouble his paralegal screamed emotionally offering us a blinding glimpse of the obvious the judge looked panic-stricken and quickly muttered something into the private phone she had had installed in the event of an emergency as for me i could only stand there dazed and confused please don t die you old fool its too early for you to check out you don t deserve to die like this the bailiff who earlier had looked as if he had been embalmed in his standing position leapt into action and started to perform cpr on the fallen legal hero the paralegal was at his side her

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long blond curls dangling over julian s ruby-red face offering him soft words of comfort words which he obviously could not hear i had known julian for seventeen years we had first met when i was a young law student hired by one of his partners as a summer research intern back then he d had it all he was a brilliant handsome and fearless trial attorney with dreams of greatness julian was the firm s young star the rain-maker in waiting i can still remember walking by his regal corner office while i was working late one night and stealing a glimpse of the framed quotation perched on his massive oak desk it was by winston churchill and it spoke volumes about the man that julian was sure i am that this day we are masters of our fate that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength that its pangs and toils are not beyond my endurance as long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win victory will not be denied us julian also walked his talk he was tough hard-driving and willing to work eighteen-hour days for the success he believed was his destiny i heard through the grapevine that his grandfather had been a prominent senator and his father a highly respected judge of the federal court it was obvious that he came from money and that there were enormous expectations weighing on his armani-clad shoulders i ll admit one thing though he ran his own race he was determined to do things his own way and he loved to put on a show julian s outrageous courtroom theatrics regularly made the front pages of the newspapers the rich and famous flocked to his side whenever they needed a superb legal tactician with an aggressive

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edge his extra-curricular activities were probably as well known late-night visits to the city s finest restaurants with sexy young fashion models or reckless drinking escapades with the rowdy band of brokers he called his demolition team became the stuff of legend at the firm i still can t figure out why he picked me to work with him on that sensational murder case he was to argue that first summer though i had graduated from harvard law school his alma mater i certainly wasn t the brightest intern at the firm and my family pedigree reflected no blue blood my father spent his whole life as a security guard with a local bank after a stint in the marines my mother grew up unceremoniously in the bronx yet he did pick me over all the others who had been quietly lobbying him for the privilege of being his legal gofer on what became known as the mother of all murder trials he said he liked my hunger we won of course and the business executive who had been charged with brutally killing his wife was now a free man or as free as his cluttered conscience would let him be my own education that summer was a rich one it was far more than a lesson on how to raise a reasonable doubt where none existed any lawyer worth his salt could do that this was a lesson in the psychology of winning and a rare opportunity to watch a master in action i soaked it up like a sponge at julian s invitation i stayed on at the firm as an associate and a lasting friendship quickly developed between us i will admit that he wasn t the easiest lawyer to work with serving as his junior was often an exercise in frustration leading to more than a few late-night shouting matches it was truly his way or the highway this man could never be wrong however beneath his crusty exterior was a person who clearly cared about people.

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no matter how busy he was he would always ask about jenny the woman i still call my bride even though we were married before i went to law school on finding out from another summer intern that i was in a financial squeeze julian arranged for me to receive a generous scholarship sure he could play hardball with the best of them and sure he loved to have a wild time but he never neglected his friends the real problem was that julian was obsessed with work for the first few years he justified his long hours by saying that he was doing it for the good of the firm and that he planned to take a month off and go to the caymans next winter for sure as time passed however julian s reputation for brilliance spread and his workload continued to increase the cases just kept on getting bigger and better and julian never one to back down from a good challenge continued to push himself harder and harder in his rare moments of quiet he confided that he could no longer sleep for more than a couple of hours without waking up feeling guilty that he was not working on a file it soon became clear to me that he was being consumed by the hunger for more more prestige more glory and more money as expected julian became enormously successful he achieved everything most people could ever want a stellar professional reputation with an income in seven figures a spectacular mansion in a neighborhood favored by celebrities a private jet a summer home on a tropical island and his prized possession a shiny red ferrari parked in the center of his driveway yet i knew that things were not as idyllic as they appeared on the surface i observed the signs of impending doom not because i was so much more perceptive than the others at the firm but simply because i spent the most time with the man we were

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always together because we were always at work things never seemed to slow down there was always another blockbuster case on the horizon that was bigger than the last no amount of preparation was ever enough for julian what would happen if the judge brought up this question or that question god forbid what would happen if our research was less than perfect what would happen if he was surprised in the middle of a packed courtroom looking like a deer caught in the glare of an intruding pair of headlights so we pushed ourselves to the limit and i got sucked into his little work-centered world as well there we were two slaves to the clock toiling away on the sixty-fourth floor of some steel and glass monolith while most sane people were at home with their families thinking we had the world by the tail blinded by an illusory version of success the more time i spent with julian the more i could see that he was driving himself deeper into the ground it was as if he had some kind of a death wish nothing ever satisfied him eventually his marriage failed he no longer spoke with his father and though he had every material possession anyone could want he still had not found whatever it was that he was looking for it showed emotionally physically and spiritually at fifty-three years of age julian looked as if he was in his late seventies his face was a mass of wrinkles a less than glorious tribute to his take no prisoners approach to life in general and the tremendous stress of his out-of-balance lifestyle in particular the late-night dinners in expensive french restaurants smoking thick cuban cigars and drinking cognac after cognac had left him embarrassingly overweight he constantly complained that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired he had lost his sense of humor and never seemed to laugh anymore.

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