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

by Robin Sharma

“Son, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries while you rejoice.”

if you don’t act on life, life has a habit of acting on you. The days slip into weeks, the weeks slip into months and the months slip into years. Pretty soon it’s all over and you are left with nothing more than a heart filled with regret over a life half lived.

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. It means you have to stop waiting for other people to make the changes you desire and, as Mahatma Gandhi noted: “Be the change that you wish to see most in your world.” And once you do, your life will change.

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.

Everyone who enters your life has a lesson to teach and a story to tell.

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

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.”

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.

keeping a journal will help clarify your intentions so that you remain focused on the things that truly count.

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.

if you have failed more than others, there is a very good chance you are living more completely than others. Those who take more chances and dare to be more and do more than others will naturally experience more failures. But personally, I would rather have the bravery to try something and then fail than never to have tried it at all.

first thirty minutes after you wake up “The Platinum 30”

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

Learning to say no to the non-essentials will give you more time to devote to the things that have the power to truly improve the way you live and help you leave the legacy you know in your heart you are destined to leave.

But after that period ends, you must train yourself to leave your troubles behind and do something more productive, such as going for a walk in natural surroundings or reading an inspirational book or having a heart-to-heart conversation with someone you love.

we spend too much time focusing on the “crust of life” rather than on all the good things that flow in and out of our days. We focus on our challenges at work, the pile of bills we have to pay and the lack of time to do all those things we need to do. But our thoughts do form our world and what we think about does grow in our lives. What we focus on will determine our destiny and so we must start focusing on the good stuff.

Regular exercise will not only improve your health, it will help you think more clearly, boost creativity and manage the relentless stress that seems to dominate our days.

“It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is what are you so busy about?”

And saying that you don’t have enough time to be silent on a regular basis is a lot like saying you are too busy driving to stop for gas — eventually it will catch up with you.

Getting up early is a gift you give to yourself.

Joining the “Five o’Clock Club” will allow you to start controlling your day rather than letting your day control you. Winning the “Battle of the Bed” and putting “mind over mattress” by rising early will provide you with at least one quiet hour for yourself during the most crucial part of your day: the beginning. If spent wisely, the rest of your day will unfold in a wonderful way.

If you owned an expensive Formula One race car, you wouldn’t think of fuelling it with anything less than premium-grade gas. Anything else would reduce its performance. So why would you put anything less than the best foods into your body, which is an even more valuable performance vehicle? Eating the wrong foods, in large quantities, will reduce your energy level, affect your health and prevent your mind from serving you to its fullest capacity.

your thoughts form your world. What you focus on in your life grows, what you think about expands and what you dwell on determines your destiny. Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy — it gives you just about what you expect from it.

first step to becoming a happier, more serene person is to manage your thoughts and purify your thinking. One of the best ways to begin this inner work is to improve the quality of your personal environment.

first-class environment is an investment, not an expense.

Your thoughts are shaped by the people you associate with, by the books you read, by the words you speak and by your daily physical surroundings. Are you spending your time at work with negative people? If so, they will eventually make you negative and cynical. Are you watching violent TV shows and mindless videos at home? If so, your mind will grow restless and noisy.

Our minds are extremely potent devices. The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between an image that we envision and one that is real.

Volunteering affords you the chance to help others and pay back the debt owed to those who have helped you.

Listening to even a few minutes of music every day is a simple yet exceptionally powerful way to manage your moods and remain at your best.

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

There has never been a more exciting time to be alive in the history of the world and you have the choice to seize the boundless possibilities that every day presents.

If you are not as fulfilled or as happy or as prosperous or as peaceful as you know you could be, stop blaming your parents or the economy or your boss and take full responsibility for your circumstances.

the monetary reward you receive is determined not by how long you work but by how much value you add.

Money simply becomes a symbol for how much value each person has added to the world at large.

So to be paid more money in your work, you must add more value to the world. And the best way to begin adding value to the world is to start becoming a more valuable person. Acquire skills no one else has. Read books no one else is reading. Think thoughts no one else is thinking.

To live a richer, more rewarding life, it is essential that you run your own race. Stop bending to the demands of social pressure at the expense of your uniqueness.

The wonderful memories that they bring will add more value to your life than any of the material toys we spend so much life energy pursuing.

Life’s greatest setbacks always reveal life’s biggest blessings.

“The tree that has the most fruit is the tree that bends to the ground,”

“if you are not pursuing your dreams, you are fueling your limitations.”

Too many of us die at twenty and are buried at eighty.

nothing can stop a person who refuses to be stopped.

Most people don’t really fail, they simply ...

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”

it is never too late to become the person you have always wanted to be.

start your own collection of quotations, words that you can keep referring to when you need some instant inspiration or advice about how to deal with those curves life sometimes sends our way.

One of the timeless secrets to a long, happy life is to love your work.

he was traveling across India by train. As he left the car he had been riding in, one of his shoes fell to a place on the tracks well beyond his reach. Rather than worrying about getting it back, he did something that startled his traveling companions: he removed his other shoe and threw it to where the first one rested. When asked why he did this, Gandhi smiled and replied: “Now the poor soul who finds the first one will have a pair that he can wear.”

happiness is not a place you reach but a state you create.