Robin S. Sharma

Robin S. Sharma is a Canadian writer of Indian Ugandan origin, best known for The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari book series. He was born in Mbale, Uganda, in 1965, emigrated to Winnipeg when he was one year old, and was raised in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. His father was a physician, his mother was a teacher, and his brother became an ophthalmologist. Sharma belongs to the late twentieth and early twenty-first century world of self-help, leadership writing, and corporate training, where ideas about work, purpose, discipline, and inner life reached a broad public audience.

His education combined science, literature, and law. At Dalhousie University, he studied biology with a minor in romantic poetry, then completed a Master’s degree in law there as well. He first worked as a lawyer, both for a firm and later for the Department of Justice in Ottawa. According to Sharma, he could not find satisfaction or peace in that work. That tension between outward achievement and inward unease became part of the ground from which his writing grew.

Sharma began his writing career at the age of 25. His first book, MegaLiving!: 30 Days to a Perfect Life, was self-published in 1994 and focused on stress management and spirituality. He also initially self-published The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, which appeared in 1997 and was later picked up for wider distribution by HarperCollins. After that second book became successful, he left law and became a full-time writer. He went on to publish books including Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Who Will Cry When You Die, The Leader Who Had No Title, The 5 AM Club, The Everyday Hero Manifesto, and The Wealth Money Can’t Buy.

One of his later works, The Saint, the Surfer, and the CEO, was released on October 1, 2002. It follows Jack Valentine, a chronically unhappy, broke, and underperforming man who has broken up with his girlfriend and then has an accident. In the hospital, he meets his long-lost father, who is dying and offers him three questions about whether one has lived wisely, served greatly, and loved well. Publishers Weekly described the book as showing “how to access your inner gifts and reshape your whole outer life in the process.”

Sharma also became widely known as a public speaker and trainer. He founded Sharma Leadership International, and CEOs and other corporate leaders have consulted him on employee motivation. He has conducted trainings for companies such as Nike, Microsoft, IBM, and FedEx, and organizations including Yale University, Harvard Business School, and NASA have called on him to speak. His words continue to connect because they are direct and self-examining. A line often quoted from him says, “It doesn’t matter what other people say about you. What is important is what you say to yourself.” That idea fits the center of his work: success begins not only with what people do, but with how they speak to themselves and choose to live.