Continuing where I left, I present the remaining of the Men’s Reading List.
I’ve added 26 books total to this list; the idea being that you read one every two weeks. Kind of like payday in most jobs.
The list continues along the same theme. Books about skill development, decision making, and theory that affects men. Your education is more critical now than ever.
Here is Part Two.
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
by Peter Drucker and Zachary First
Drucker is an important person in the world of executive management, and his knowledge is a regular influence in the lives of C-level personnel in Fortune 500 companies.
There is no reason that men outside of that exclusive group of professionals can’t obtain crucial knowledge for their own professional lives from Drucker. Finding the wisdom in Drucker’s business savvy and applying it to your life is important for one crucial reason: it eliminates emotional response.
As a man, you can’t afford to be emotional. You’re going to be surrounded by people that are emotional. They are making rash, unconscionable decisions so routinely, that unvarnished analysis would be hard to decipher their decision-making skills at all.
Even more, the challenge of the modern generations of men is to developed businesses. Because the US business sector is in decline, and the current leading employers are creating toxic cultures that penalize men just for showing up on time and informed. Drucker gives you a proven plan that can help you become a successful business owner in your own right and make yourself stable.
The Laws of Human Nature, The 48 Laws of Power, Art of Seduction, Mastery, and The 33 Strategies of War
by Robert Greene
Ok, this is actually five titles from Greene. And I did this to drive the point home: if you’re a man, and you’re not reading the books of Robert Greene, you are falling behind so very badly, and you need to catch up.
Being objective, start with The 48 Laws of Power, and work from there.
The Manipulated Man
by Esther Vilar
Considering all the books I’ve included thus far concerning relationships, this one should come first in your reading. Vilar was a pioneer on the topic of true equality in relationships. The lie we’re being told now for over fifty years is that to be equal, feminist imperative must come first. This is why compromise is such a heavily used tactic by relationship “experts” who promote it. It’s a tactic women are taught as girls, which means that over time they’ve become experts at using it to manipulate situations to their favor…. not very equal.
Vilar promoted a tried and tested method of coming to grips within a relationship: openness and honesty. Imagine that?
What Vilar had to put up with for exposing manipulation and dishonesty that largely fell on women in her research (and might I add proven), is nothing short of spectacularly indecent. Death threats, harassment, stalking, and everything else that terrible. All for suggesting openness and honesty.
I can’t be clearer on this: Vilar’s title is going to save you a lot of heartache and misery, and better to spend money on her book, then the house and divorce lawyer later.
Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – And Why it Matters
by Dr. Helen Smith
A true hero among women, Dr. Smith has reading the thesis with proven statistics, and her own experience in both psychology practice, and research.
She lays out why men are increasingly not interested in marriage, family life, and fatherhood. Pointing directly to the correlations where social welfare, family law, political norms, and societal cultures are placing more arbitrary penalties on men, while disincentivizing men from participating in societal norms.
Young men need to read this book now. The fact is that current mass thought is targeting men. As men, you need to be aware of this before heading towards marriage. You will lose more and gain nothing by participating in the current version of marriage being promoted.
Men who are participating, or have participated, need to read this book before they enter marriage again. Understanding what you are truly facing is imperative to success.
No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life
by Dr. Robert Glover
I promote this book for on reason: The guy that Dr. Glover is talking about, shouldn’t be who you were, ever.
There’s no reason to be a “nice” guy, there’s no reason you should subscribe to it, there’s no reason you should aspire to it. Being a “nice” guy is wildly inappropriate, and there are countless examples out there to discuss.
The main tenet in this title is that men need to stop seeking approval. They need to go out there and accomplish what they want to. By waiting for approval, they cause themselves frustration, which they ultimately visit upon others in their life.
Dr. Glover makes great points throughout, and this is definitely a book you need to read.
Men Without Work
by Nicholas Eberstadt
I’ve highlighted this book before, and it’s that important. Eberstadt, a political economist who has written studies on this topic finally developed a book that is concise enough in size, but bountiful in content.
He shows through publicly available statistics, that the employment of men has been in decline since the World War II era, and the problem this has created is much worse to society.
The issue is presented, and then debate occurs between two political ideologues. It’s an extremely interesting read in how it is setup and argued. However, the issue still stares us in the face every morning: men are not valued in the feminist-centric world. You need to know and accept this now, if you ever plan to help change it.
Secrets to Mental Math: The Mathemagician’s Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks
By Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer
There are certain skills that rise about others as useful from a universal perspective. Mental math is one of those skills. When it comes to solving certain everyday problems, be it figuring out square footage in a given room, balancing a checkbook, plotting out utility bills for a twelve-month cycle for average and total, and so on. It doesn’t how much you try to avoid it, the situations where quick math skills are necessary are vast and endless.
Some people aren’t great at math, let alone mental math. But while you’re building your mental toughness and building analysis skills from other titles in this list, learning how to build mental math skills fall right into line with a man’s path, are a skill you should possess.
Benjamin and Shermer make it clear how to develop shortcuts to put numbers together quickly, so you can solve daily problems with confidence, and look like you have confidence while doing it.
Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges
by Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney
Southwick and Charney put together an excellent book on the greatest skill you can build; resilience. As a man you are going to find out rather quickly that no one is going to support you. No one is going to be there for you when failure and rejection strikes. No one is going to help you up. No one is going to care. Not your parents, not your friends, and certainly not the women in your life. Instead, everyone will use that moment to evaluate if you can sink or swim, and if you swim, fine, you pass their test. If not, they’ll leave you behind like high-end sunglasses at a barbecue.
How Bad Do You Want It?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind over Muscle
by Matt Fitzgerald
Expounding on the previous titles concerning mental toughness, Fitzgerald’s expose of endurance athletes makes clear what you must do to win; build your mental capacity.
Fitzgerald finds key lessons to provide through the experience of great endurance athletes who turned in spectacular performances in their own right, and then through his journalist background answers the questions that plague the issue of winners and losers, and how one rises above the others.
A fascinating read in sports psychology that ends up being a lesson plan for behavioral psychology.
Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home
by Ilona Bray, J.D., and Alayna Schroeder, J.D.
While The Idiot’s Guide series was dependent on one or two experts, with rarely any legal backing, Nolo has taken that next step, by providing attorneys that are experts in their field to supply the information for each title.
Why is this important? When it comes to major financial decisions, a house being one of those, you want to have sound legal advice at your fingertips. For example, did you sign a contract for a house that within two months has a mold issue? You may have rights that can hold the seller responsible.
Beyond the usual litigious reasoning, Nolo’s guide helps the first-time home buyer figure out what they can do to protect their first (but hopefully) second investment. While most people consider a house an asset, it’s a liability until it’s paid off, and earning some form of income. This guide is filled with plenty of answers that get you through the buying process, so that you can protect your investment.
Zen Jiu-Jitsu – White to Blue
by Oliver Staark
As a man, you should pursue a martial art. At least one, two if you can. But whatever you decide to pursue should have practical application. Many forms of martial arts are nice activities that provide basic forms of discipline and fitness within their teachings. But some martial arts are more effective than others, and in my opinion, Jiu-Jitsu is far more effective than any other martial art.
Staark’s book is designed for white belt students of Jiu-Jitsu to fully attain the knowledge base needed to move to the next belt, blue belt. If you are planning to be a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, having an extremely detailed background in the white and blue belt knowledge base is only going to help you ascend further into purple, brown, and black belt levels. This is also what makes Jiu-Jitsu so democratized. Getting better and more knowledgeable with the basics is what gets you to ascend.
Time Management
by Brian Tracy
Another author who gets a perennial nod is Brian Tracy. However, let’s start at the absolute beginning of it all: time management.
You’re a man, and that typically means you have a lot of demands on your time, and a lot of people vying for your attention at varying times.
You need to master your time, or it will master you. It is the one resource you can’t add to, only take away from. It is too valuable not to maximize your time.
Tracy made a series of “pocketbooks” designed to address several business topics that translate to skills you need to be successful in. Certainly, all of them have value, but time management stands out as universal among them all. Tracy’s book is centered around an office worker, but you’ll find that most of what he has to say is applicable directly, and the rest can be applied to your specific circumstance.
Mastering time is crucial to manhood.
What Everybody is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People
by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins
We’ve discussed the work of Navarro before, but his writing is that important that you need to read it. In this book, Navarro teaches how to read people’s nonverbal cues. From the history of body language and its application, to the positioning of thumbs, Navarro tells you what is when it comes to making decisions about people you are interacting with, and where there tells really are.
Backed by his professional experience as an FBI Profiler, Navarro can teach anyone how to analyze people, and in doing so, set you up to ask better questions that get to the truth at hand.
As a man, this is an invaluable skill that you need to succeed in both your professional and personal life.
Now that you’re motivated to read well, get started today.
Matthew Ballantyne 