At the core of every successful guy is the need for constant improvement. Here is my list of the 10 best self help books for men.
In an ever changing world, only the strong survive. The strong stay strong y always learning and growing. They are constantly relearning the new rules of the ever changing game of life.
If you have the core desire to always learn and grow, you have the character to survive. Now all you need is to learn what to spend your time learning.
I have created this list of my all time favorite best self help books for men. There should be no surprise of anything on this list.
If you have not read all these books, you are setting yourself up for failure!
As a man, you are responsible for the lives of others. Maybe your family, maybe your company, maybe just yourself. You must know what success means. For most people, it simply means to be take care of yourself, take care of others, and to grow and develop your talents and skills.
I have chosen just 10 of the best self help books for men to cover each of these areas (Health, Wealth, and Growth). Make sure you are proficient in all 3 to have a well balanced, successful life.
Happy Reading!
10 Best Self Help Books for Men
The Richest Man in Babylon
By George S. Clason
I loved this book and highly recommend the audio version. The narrator does an excellent job of making the story very entertaining and fun. The lessons are core to anyone looking to build wealth and are truly timeless. If you can remember just one lesson from this book, it should be “A part of all you earn is yours to keep”.
Seven Cures for a Lean Purse
- Start Thy Purse To Fattening: Pay yourself first. Save at least 10% of what you earn – no matter what. Work hard at your current job and only spend 90% of what you earn.
- Control Thy Expenditures: Saving more means spending less – and it won’t hurt as much as you think.
- Make Thy Gold Multiply: Invest your savings. Once you start to build up some savings, invest that money so that it will make more money for you.
- Guard Thy Treasure From Loss: invest wisely and manage your risk.
- Make Of Thy Dwelling A Profitable Investment: Own your home, but purchase wisely.
- Insure a Future Income: Make sure you save enough for retirement and to care for your family when your life comes to an end.
- Increase Thy Ability To Earn: Improve your knowledge and skills consistently to increase your earning power. Work hard, look for opportunities, and educate yourself.
How to Win Friends & Influence People
by Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the most popular books for improving people’s confidence that has ever been sold. First published in 1937, over 16 million copies of the book have been sold. Millions of readers have improved both their personal as well as professional lives by following his lessons.
This book aims to teach you about:
- Convince people to follow ideas
- Help you gain new clients
- Help you make friends both easily as well as quickly
- Increase your popularity in both your personal and professional circles
- Help boost peer enthusiasm
Mr. Carnegie believes that personal relationships determine your success. The way in which you are able to connect with others serves to determine how well you succeed in life.
The book will teach you 12 principles that are a guide to both better personal and professional relationships.
The Automatic Millionaire
by David Bach
The Automatic Millionaire starts with the powerful story of an average American couple–he’s a low-level manager, she’s a beautician–whose joint income never exceeds $55,000 a year, yet who somehow manage to own two homes debt-free, put two kids through college, and retire at 55 with more than $1 million in savings.
Through their story you’ll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.
This approach here is very simple. Pay yourself first, make it automatic, and forget about it and let compounding interest work for you in the background. Pick your investments well at the start, make minor adjustments along the way, and let it grow. It really is that simple.
Financial Peace Revisited
By Dave Ramsey
Dave Ramsey is a businessman and entrepreneur who accumulated a $4 million real estate portfolio, only to lose it all – and nearly everything else he owned – by making the same mistake millions of Americans make every day: he got too far into debt to get out.
Dave Ramsey is also a Christian family man who, through the turmoil of his financial nightmare, discovered a new way of life. He shared the lessons he learned by writing Financial Peace, a simple but powerful guide that offers practical lessons on how to get out of debt – and stay out.
I love Dave Ramsey and his very simple approach for managing finances. This was one of the first books I’ve read on personal finance and has completely reshaped my approach to spending money.
Follow the Baby steps
- $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
- Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
- 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
- Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
- College funding for children
- Pay off home early
- Build wealth and give!
Be 200% focused on getting and staying our of debt
Apply a old fashion, common sense approach to finances because it works.
MONEY Master the Game
7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom
By Tony Robbins
Book Outline
The best book on investing I’ve read. Particularly important is the goal setting and Asset Allocation.
The book is a thorough compilation of the knowledge extracted from the series of extensive interviews he conducted of more than 50 financial experts. He has given expert advice and tips to tackle the money monster and has laid out proven techniques on securing financial freedom.
Neatly tailored into a 7 step lifetime income plan, the book addresses the people of every income level. The readers will find precious anecdotes scattered throughout the length of the book, helping them to prim their financial education into effective financial saving plan.
I felt this book was so good that I wanted to provide a full outline to it and did on my personal website, www.TJTotland.com. Please visit it for more complete summary.
The Art of Manliness:
Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man
By Brett McKay (www.artofmanliness.com)
Time to Man Up!
While it’s definitely more than just monster trucks, grilling and six-pack abs, true manliness is hard to define. The words macho and manly are not synonymous.
Taking lessons from classic gentlemen such as Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, authors Brett and Kate McKay have created a collection of the most useful advice every man needs to know to live life to its full potential.
This book contains a wealth of information that ranges from survival skills to social skills to advice on how to improve your character.
Whether you are braving the wilds with your friends, courting your girlfriend or raising a family, inside you’ll find practical information and inspiration for every area of life.
So jump in today and gain the skills and knowledge you need to be a real man in the 21st century.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
by Stephen Covey
CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING BOOKS EVER WRITTEN, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has guided generations of readers for the last 25 years. Presidents and CEOs have kept it by their bedsides, students have underlined and studied passages from it, educators and parents have drawn from it, and individuals of all ages and occupations have used its step-by-step pathway to adapt to change and to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
My take: There is a reason why everyone has this book listed on their best books to read for self improvement. It is a great approach to getting stuff done. This book you cannot cheat on and just read summaries, here you need to read the whole book in order to completely understand and for it to have an impact on your life. The 7 habits are:
- Be Proactive
- Begin with the End in Mind
- Put First Things First
- Think Win-Win
- Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the Saw
Who Moved My Cheese?
by Spencer Johnson
A timeless business classic, Who Moved My Cheese? uses a simple parable to reveal profound truths about dealing with change so that you can enjoy less stress and more success in your work and in your life. Probably one of the shortest books you will ever read.
This is a very small book and can be finished in about an hour, and is critical in this every changing world.
- Change Happens
- Anticipate Change
- Monitor Change
- Adapt to Change Quickly
- Change
- Enjoy Change
- Be Ready to Change Quickly and Enjoy It Again
Stop Saying Your Fine
By Mel Robbins
Great book for getting yourself unstuck and start making real changes in your life. The book starts off slow and rough but the points she makes really drive home in the second half. Stick with it to the end.
The appendix is a great summary. Well worth a second read for the motivation to get moving on your dreams.
The book is divided in 3 parts:
- Why you aren’t getting what you want
- The Method for becoming powerful and getting what you want
- Finding the stamina to keep getting what you want
Mel has 8 rules for getting unstuck and on your way to achieving your dreams and success in life. She (and Tony Robbins, no relation) are famous for their simple advice of taking action, and that’s what her 8 rules are all about.
Overall a great book and recommended to anyone looking to make a change in their life but don’t know how to get going.
The 4-Hour Workweek
by Timothy Ferriss
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches: how Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week. In the book Tim goes over:
- Outsourcing your life to overseas virtual assistants to get more done with less time.
- Being an escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
- Eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist.
- Trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”.
This is a very interesting book but do not be fooled by the catchy title. His ideas are core for any entrepreneur and his get going approach is admirable. If the title is taken literately, then it would seem to be just a scam. If read for its interesting ideas on business and life, then it is totally worth the read. Core ideas I will take away are:
- Starting a business doesn’t need to be hard, just take the first step.
- Living the life you want is critical in your life purpose. Find balance and commit to it.
- Apply the 80/20 rule where you can so you can apply your time where it matters.
- Be effective, not efficient, not busy.
- “Doing something unimportant well does not make it important”
- Charge a premium, have fewer clients, apply the 80/20 rule here.
- Validate a business idea before jumping in with time and money.
- It’s easier to achieve something great than something that’s just “good”.
Conclusion
This was my list of the 10 best self help books for men and I think its hard to argue with any of the books on this list.
As a man, you must always improve and grow, but need a little help along the way. These 10 best self help books for men will help you along the way.
Trust me, these are the best of the best and well worth the money and time to read them. If you have no time to read, then get the audio version and listen to them while driving or doing chores around the house.
Every little bit helps and in no time you will be addicted to learning, and this is a good thing.
Leave a comment below and let me know what books you think should be included in this list of the 10 best self help books for men. I will read your recommendations and if I agree, will add them to the list (and change the title to be 11 best self help books for men).
Please consider signing up for the mailing list and be the first to hear about new articles posted about once a week.
Thanks for reading!
[optin-cat id=1180]