Who Will Cry When You Die?: Life Lessons From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

by Robin Sharma

The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live. —Norman Cousins

My answer always begins the same way: Find your calling. I believe we all have special talents that are just waiting to be engaged in a worthy pursuit. We are all here for some unique purpose, some noble objective that will allow us to manifest our highest human potential while we, at the same time, add value to the lives around us.

Finding your calling doesn’t mean you must leave the job you now have. It simply means you need to bring more of yourself into your work and focus on the things you do best.

A meaningful life is made up of a series of daily acts of decency and kindness, which, ironically, add up to something truly great over the course of a lifetime.

Kindness, quite simply, is the rent we must pay for the space we occupy on this planet.

Become more creative in the ways you show compassion to strangers. Paying the toll for the person in the car behind you, offering your seat on the subway to someone in need and being the first to say hello are great places to start.

Recently, I received a letter from a reader of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari who lives in Washington State. In it she wrote: “I have a practice of tithing to people who have helped me along my spiritual path. Please accept the enclosed check of $100 with my blessing and gratitude.” I quickly responded to her generous act by sending one of my audiotape programs in return so she received value for the g...

Practice Tough Love The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing.

the tougher you are on yourself, the easier life will be on you. The quality of your life ultimately is shaped by the quality of your choices and decisions, ones that range from the career you choose to pursue to the books you read, the time that you wake up every morning and the thoughts you think during the hours of your days. When you consistently flex your willpower by making those choices that you know are the right ones (rather than the easy ones), you take back control of your life.

English writer Thomas Henry Huxley arrived at a similar conclusion, noting: “Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.”

And Aristotle made this point of wisdom in yet another way: “Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave.”

Keep a Journal Maintaining a daily journal is one of the best personal growth initiatives you will ever take.

Writing down your daily experiences along with the lessons you have drawn from them will make you wiser with each passing day.

You will develop self-awareness and make fewer mistakes. And keeping a journal will help clarify your intentions so that you remain f...

Writing in a journal offers you the opportunity to have regular one-on-one conversations with yourself. It forces you to do some deep thinking in a world where deep thinking is a thing of the past. It will also make you a clearer think...

In addition, it provides a central place where you can record your insights on important issues, note key success strategies that have worked for you and commit to all those things you know are important to achieve for a high-quality professional, personal and spiritual life. And your personal jou...

A journal is not a diary. A diary is a place where you record events while a journal is a place where ...

Keeping a journal encourages you to consider what you do, why you do it and what you have learned from all you have done. And writing in a journal promotes personal growth and wisdom by giving you a forum to study, and t...

Medical researchers have even found that writing in a private journal for as little time as 15 minutes a day can improve health, functioning of your...

Remember, if your life is worth thinking about, it is wo...

Develop an Honesty Philosophy

We live in a world of broken promises. We live in a time when people treat their words lightly.

Every second you dwell on the past you steal from your future. Every minute you spend focusing on your problems you take away from finding your solutions. And thinking about all those things that you wish never happened to you is actually blocking all the things you want to happen from entering into your life.

Given the timeless truth that holds that you become what you think about all day long, it makes no sense to worry about past events or mistakes unless you want to experience them for a second time.

Life’s greatest setbacks reveal life’s biggest opportunities. As the ancient thinker Euripides noted, “There is in the worst of fortune the best chances for a happy change.”

If you have suffered more than your fair share of difficulties in life, perhaps you are being prepared to serve some greater purpose that will require you to be equipped with the wisdom you have acquired through your trials.

Use these life lessons to fuel your future growth. Remember, happy people have often experienced as much adversity as those who are unhappy. What sets them apart is that they have the good sense to man...

And understand that if you have failed more than others, there is a very good chance you are living...

Or as Booker T. Washington said, “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.”

Start Your Day Well The way you begin your day determines the way you will live your day. I call the first thirty minutes after you wake up “The Platinum 30” since they are truly the most valuable moments of your day and have a profound influence on the quality of every minute that follows. If you have the wisdom and self-discipline to ensure that, during this key period, you think only the purest of thoughts and take only the finest of actions, you will notice that your days will consistently unfold in the most marvelous ways.

In my own life, I have developed a very effective morning ritual that consistently gets my day off to a joyful and peace-filled start. After waking, I head down to my “personal sanctuary,” a little space I have created for myself where I can practice my renewal activities without being disturbed. I then spend about fifteen minutes in silent contemplation, focusing on all the good things in my life and envisioning the day that I expect is about to unfold. Next I pick up a book from the wisdom literature, one rich with those timeless truths of successful living that are so easy to forget in these fast-paced times we live in. Examples include Meditations by the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Walden by Henry David Thoreau. The lessons in these works center me on the things that truly count and help launch my day on the right footing. And the wisdom I read during that precious early morning period infuses and enlightens every remaining minute of my day. So start your day well. You will never be the same.

“if your priorities don’t get scheduled into your planner, other people’s priorities will get put into your planner.”

The solution is to be clear about your life’s highest objectives and then to learn to say no with grace.

The Chinese sage Chuang-tzu told the story of a man who forged swords for a maharaja. Even at the age of ninety, his work was carried out with exceptional precision and ability. No matter how rushed he was, he never made even the slightest slip. One day, the maharaja asked the old man, “Is this a natural talent ...

“It is concentration on the e...

replied the sword-crafter. “I took to forging swords when I was twenty-one years old. I did n...

If it was not a sword, I did not look at it or pay an...

Forging swords became my passion and my purpose. I took all the energy that I did not give in other directions and put it in the direction of my...

Stress itself is not a bad thing. It can often help us perform at our best, expand beyond our limits and achieve things that would otherwise astonish us. Just ask any elite athlete. The real problem lies in the fact that in this age of global anxiety we do not get enough relief from stress.

So to revitalize yourself and nourish the deepest part of you, plan for a weekly period of peace — a weekly sabbatical — to get back to the simpler pleasures of life, pleasures that you may have given up as your days grew busier and your life more complex. Bringing this simple ritual into your weeks will help you reduce stress, connect with your more creative side and feel far happier in every role of your life.

Your weekly sabbatical does not have to last a full day. All you need are a few hours alone, perhaps on a quiet Sunday morning, when you can spend some tim...

Ideas include spending time in your favorite bookstore, watching the sun rise, taking a solitary walk along a be...

Organizing your life so that you get to do more of the things you love to do is one of the firs...

In the words of Thoreau, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Talk to Yourself

I read a book called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. The book discussed the enormous power of the human mind to shape our reality and attract great happiness and prosperity into our lives.

The technique is a simple one and involves nothing more than selecting a phrase that you will train your mind to focus on at different times throughout the day until it begins to dominate your awareness and reshape the person you are.

If it is inner peace and calm you seek, the phrase, known as a mantra, might be, “I am so grateful that I am a serene and tranquil person.” If it is more confidence that you want, your mantra could be, “I am delighted that I am full of confidence and boundless courage.” If it is material prosperity you are after, your saying might be, “I am so grateful that money and opportunity is flowing into my life.”

Repeat your mantras softly under your breath as you walk to work, as you wait in line or as you wash the dishes to fill otherwise unproductive times of your day with a powerful life improvement force. Try to say your personal phr...

As Hazrat Inayat Khan said, “The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.”