There is no friend as loyal as a book. ~ Ernest Hemingway
Earlier this year I wrote an article citing 30 Books a Man Should Read Before The Age of 30. ‘Twas a long list filled with wonderful books that will help you through hardship and suffering, improving your toughness and your grit, aiding you in your quest to become a better man. Each of those books should be knocked off one by one, but I realize that such a list is lofty. Thus, I’d like to bring you 3 books that every guy should read.
These books will be your companions, your friends. They’ll speak to you like a mentor guiding his star pupil. They’ll contribute to your evolution, your improvement, and they’ll provide you with much needed guidance.
Go through this list one by one. Don’t stop until you’ve read each, ideally each book twice. After finishing this list of books you’ll have no valid reason to complain about your life or what you’ve been subjected to. You’ll have no excuse but to work hard and take responsibility of your life.
These books will make you a better man if you let them. If you are an action-taker, a man not of words but of deeds, these books will help you live a better life, but don’t waste them. Don’t relegate them to thought and don’t skim through them without intent.
Take these 3 tips to heart when reading these books:
1. Read with a pen.
Your book should also be your journal. Write your thoughts, revealing thoughts. Be real with yourself and where you are in life and how you compare to the men and women within the pages of whichever book you’re reading. Never read a book only once. Come back to it at some point in your life if it’s worth reading. These notes will be a wonderful addition in that second foray into the book.
2. Read for 1 hour everyday.
Everyone has one hour to read, that is, if we don’t give our time to waste, to TV, to movies and video games and gossip. Take an hour each day to read.
3. Keep a book journal.
Within this journal, write about the book, your take on the book, how it’s effecting to you and how it will make you a better man. This journal is something you’ll want to review in a year’s time to see if you’ve taken action on those things you promised yourself you would.
“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Books, just like adventures and workouts and adversity, help shape you. Choose them wisely and plentifully, and devour them like a lion devours an antelope.
3 Books Every Guy Should Read
“When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.” — Erasmus
Spend money on books first, everything else should be a distant second.
1. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Our happiness in life is often in relation or in direct comparison to another or to others. It’s a destructive way of looking at things, it leads to jealousy and ignorance of what we have. We become incapable of being satisfied or even happy and instead want more. Who we compare our lives to or our degree of success to, our money our homes our cars, always changes and evolves as we get more and earn more. It ain’t healthy.
Instead of comparing my life or degree of success I’m comparing the idea of who I want to be with who I am. Still, this desire to compare our lives and what we’ve accomplished to the live of others and what they have accomplished can be used for good. Unbroken, is one such example.
Rather than giving a synopsis of this book and ruining the sea of surprises within those wonderful pages, I’ll simply tell you what you’re going to get from this book.
You will be humbled. The man you are will pale in comparison to the man whose story you are about to read simply because he’s been put through more, he’s been shaken, he’s suffered unjustly without merit and his faith somehow remained.
You will never again have a valid reason to complain. Your life, as it is now, is a great life. His life was a great life. After reading about the journey of Louis Zamperini, however, you will no longer have any value reason or excuse to complain. You’ll find yourself looking for the good rather than dwelling on the bad.
It’s a powerful, wonderful book that every human should read.
2. The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
No matter what you do or what you want to do you have to know how to sell. This book will dramatically change your view of selling. It’s a short read and I highly recommend you read it as instructed (you’ll know what I’m talking about by chapter 6). I read this book in a day and I’m a slow reader. It’s a page-turner, one that you can’t help but hold on to and experience the next page and then the next chapter.
It’s a delight, and it will not only change your view on what it means to sale but also what it means to be a happy and successful human being. This book is a gift to mankind. It will place the power over your life in your hands and not in the hands of any one else or any other entity.
It’s a powerful book that gives you power. If you want to be inspired and motivated, read this book. If you want hope, do the same.
History is written by those who become masters. Napoleon became a master of battle, Da Vinci of art and science, two mediums that are very closely linked, and Alexander the Great a master of audacity and expansion.
You have it within you to become a master, and this book delves into the methods and the means that great men and women before you used to become masters in their own individual craft. It gives great insight into Da Vinci, which then led me to buy a few books on the man.
If you want to know what you’ll get from this book, it isn’t a magic map to becoming a master, nor a quick fix to your problems, it’s something you may not want because it will expose you, it will rid you of all your excuses and show you that no matter where you are, where you’re born, or who you are, there is no human on this planet that can’t master something.
The practice must occur, it must be good, focused practice. It will take time and considerable risk. You will have to give yourself to that thing you’re passionate about. You will be alone. If, however, you want to leave your fingerprint on this planet, you can. This book gives you the road map to greatness.
Books Give You Power
Books make you tougher. They expose your mind to different views of reality that you had no way of thinking of on your own. Different ideas of what’s important. Maybe most importantly they remove excuses from your life. After reading a book about a guy who’s been tortured and held captive for a couple years, you realize that there’s little you have the right to complain about.
When reading about Da Vinci, a bastard child who was self-taught as a youth, you realize that genius isn’t born, but created when an intense passion meets persistence. Your excuses don’t exist, they’re purely of your imagination. Read. It gives you power, it gives the power over your life, your present and your future.
