Book Review: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
I was first introduced to the book “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by a girl I met at a party in September 2023. I had never read self-help books before but I was interested in the topic. Being on a journey of self-improvement, I wondered what could be extracted from this type of literature. Until then, the only external advice I had was from Matt d’Avella’s YouTube videos. And I feel that short 10-minute videos can spark a low commitment to implement long-term change in me (do not get me wrong, his videos are amazing). So I gave the book a chance.
For starters, the premise of the text is to teach the reader a list of techniques and actionable advice to live a more fulfilling, present, and, all in all, happy life. The channel used is a little less obvious. The author, Robin Sharma, uses an allegory in the form of the story of a lawyer called Julian Mantle. The story goes like this: Julian, a successful lawyer who lives a superficial life, suffers a heart attack, sells everything (yes, including his Ferrari), and retreats to the Himalayas. There, he will meet the Sages of Sivarna, a group of monks that present superhuman abilities thanks to the practice of different rituals and exercises. After some time with them, he learns all there is to know about their secrets and returns to the US to spread the word of the Sages. His first visit is John, the narrator of the story. He is his former colleague. During that night, Julian will pass down all his knowledge to John and provoke such an impact on him to lead his friend toward the path of enlightenment.
My opinion
My core criticism of the book is indeed the channel used to transmit the messages, not the messages by themselves. As Mark Manson put it in his video “Why Self-Help Books are Overrated”(link here), this genre is usually a repackaging of ancient philosophy and religious ideas that have been around for centuries. The added value of these types of books is in the packages themselves, and I more or less agree. I once tried to learn about stoic philosophy and how to apply it in my life. I felt it was more of a deep university study rather than something I could apply to my life. Do not get me wrong, I still enjoyed (and a lot) learning about how ancient philosophers approached living. The issue was how to translate those teachings to modern life.
What happens with the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is in the same realm. It overuses esoterical names and fancy-sounding explanations for simple practices such as gratitude or meditation. I found it a bit frustrating sometimes to read about the ancient practice of XYZ that would improve ABC to finally find out that the writer was referring to listening to music once a day. All in all, the over-the-top names and rituals did not sit quite well with me. Furthermore, having been published in 1996, both the writing and some of the context felt a bit outdated for a 25-year-old.
Despite this, I found many of the ideas shared in this book to be insightful and valuable. I would pinpoint the “Heart of the Rose practice” (basically the art of meditation) as one of my favorites. I started reading the book while I began to use the Waking Up meditation app. It gave me a feeling of assurance that I was on the right track. This feeling was repeated several times throughout the book when I read about practices or advice I was already implementing myself. In hindsight, what I extracted from this book is a sense of validation that I am indeed on the right path of self-improvement.
Lessons learned
Although the majority of the ideas shared in the book were already known, I did get some new insights. The following list comprises all concepts that I extracted from the book that have stuck with me:
- To master your mind you have to curate the thoughts you put in: Robin Sharma uses the metaphor of a garden to illustrate this point. The idea is to assess the quality of your thoughts as you check what products you use when taking care of a garden: if you let invasive plants and harmful chemicals enter your backyard garden, it will slowly rot and die. The same happens with your thoughts, if you enable harmful ideas to float in your mind, your quality of life will be diminished. This correlates very well with how we perceive things and respond to our experiences. It is better to approach negative experiences as learning opportunities rather than setbacks. It is much easier said than done, I know. I will refer again to one of Mark Mansons’ advice: approach life as an experiment. This means that, when faced with challenges, you can establish a premise and test it. If it fails, it was always a possible outcome, so no worries. Although you did not succeed, you extracted a lesson from that experiment that you will be able to use in the future. Personally (and maybe because I am an engineer), I find this approach to life to be more exciting and less threatening.
- Meditation to be more present: This is an issue that I have struggled my whole life with, being present. My mind always tends to be going back and forward between the past and the future, never settling on the present moment. As I said, I tried to start meditating with the Sam Harris app Waking Up (and I say tried because I have not done any sessions in 2024), and it worked. It gave me a pleasant sensation of calm after each session. I even once caught myself meditating, for a second, during a stressful moment at work. I strongly recommend the practice.
- Setting goals and being goal-driven: How are you supposed to travel life if you do not know your destination? More or less, that is what Julian suggests when he emphasizes being goal-driven. It is common to be lost in everyday actions, chores, and duties and navigate life as a leaf blown by the wind. The idea here is to set realistic goals that align with your values and take incremental steps (kaizen, constant improvement) toward that objective. I take this advice and put it on the list since I always have painted big brush ideas and goals in my life, thus failing to boil down the incremental steps to reach my objectives. It is funny to put this treat of mine in perspective with my job. For me, it is easy to establish action plans and set up each phase of a big project for a client. In my personal life, things tend to be trickier. What I will try to do is implement the skills I have acquired in the corporate world for my everyday endeavors and see how it works.
Actionable advice
Having laid down the points that have struck me as more interesting, the following points sum up the actionable advice that I will be implementing in my own life during the following weeks:
- Social media detox: I have uninstalled all apps for social networking apps (even YouTube and LinkedIn).
- Daily meditations: I will be retaking my daily meditations with Sam Harris Waking Up. Furthermore, I will try to document my progress in this blog.
- Goal review: During the following weeks, I will be reviewing my life priorities and, maybe, writing a “Life Whitepaper” to straighten and strengthen my goals.
Conclusions
Would I recommend this book? Tentative. On one side, if you are into fantasy, esoteric stuff, the way the ideas are laid down might be right for you. If you are like me, a more science-oriented kind of guy, maybe skip this book. I am currently reading Mark Manson’s “The subtle art of not giving a fuck”, and I am finding it absorbing. Nevertheless, although the ideas of both books overlap in some points, I feel they complement each other. I will be sharing a full review of the latter sooner than later.
In hindsight, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” is a self-help classic, with good ideas but using a style and channel that may have fallen out of fashion and not appealing to everybody.