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10 Books Every Boy Should Have Read Before His 18th Birthday

 

Reading can give you one hell of a head start if you can get into it at an early age. In every facet of life reading can make your speed past your competitors and peers at an amazing rate. Regardless if it’s making money, building a body of steel, picking up hot babes, reconnecting with your masculinity, learning to fight, or anything else. There are those that have walked the path before and would share their knowledge with you. It’s like the difference between running a race with no map and running a race with a map. That’s the advantage that reading can give you.

Here I have a list of 10 books every boy should have read by his 18th birthday. They will give you a leg up in every facet of your life. By no means is this a comprehensive list. A boy should have read a hell of a lot more than ten books by his eighteenth birthday. These are just the ten that will give you the greatest advantage and that will put you miles (putting it lightly) ahead of your peers. Feel free to add your own in the comments below, I’d love to hear them.

Book #1 – The Primer

Alright it’s my own. But you’d be hard pressed to find a better practical guide to follow then this. The basis of masculinity, lifting, where women fit into a man’s life, entrepreneurship, making money, life goals, and much more. It’s all covered in this book. This will give you a broad overlook of masculine self-development that you can then dig deeper in with the rest of the remaining books. Plus The Primer gives you a practical daily setup you can use for the rest of your life to develop into all you can be.

Book #2 – The Way Of Men

Masculinity is something that is earned, not something that you grow in to. The basis of what masculinity is is covered in this book. It’ll get you to connect with your masculinity and other men in a way that will never be taught to you by modern society. You will learn the way of the tribe, the gang. You will learn the way of men. Your masculinity is the foundation upon which everything else rests. Connect with this, this is the life spring. This will show you the purpose of life for a man. Fundamental reading.

Book #3 – The Strangest Secret

The Strangest Secret is a transcript of a recording by Earl Nightingale. In it Earl talks about how your thoughts direct your life and the importance of having right thought. While thinking isn’t everything as some would have you believe it does make one hell of a difference. A man who has his mind working against him will never go far likewise a man who has his mind right can conquer any challenge put in front of him. And the basis of your mind is the thoughts that you think. Learn their importance and how to get your mind on your own side. It’ll be your greatest ally or your strongest foe.

Book #4 – The Manual

Alright look there are many many many things more important in life than women. Honor, strength, pride to name a few. However you and I both know that if you’re like any other red-blooded male it’s going to be hard to focus on that stuff if you don’t know how to get your dating life handled. Hey it’s the truth. I remember older people who cared about me talking about sales and entrepreneurship and I could think of was hot girls, it’s natural. It’s how men work and there is nothing wrong with it. But let’s get this covered so you can move on to more important things. The Manual is going to teach you pretty much everything you need to know about how men and women are attracted to each other and how to capitalize on this for greatest effect.

Book #5 – The Rational Male

Alright now that you know how to get women you have to learn how to not go and do something stupid like get married. And why that’s such a poor option right now. I’m not saying you can never get married but you need to go in with both eyes wide open. The Rational Male is going to lay out female nature to you like never before. You have to be aware of the dark side of women. Not to hate them but to have the best understanding so that you can make wise decisions. This will also keep you from ever becoming pussy whipped as well.

Book #6 – Championship Fighting

Alright here’s the thing if you don’t know how to defend yourself and fight you’ll always be seen as weak, picked on, and be considered a pussy. And there is much truth to that. A fundamental function of being a man is knowing how to fight. And this book will teach you exactly how to do that. Follow everything in this book with dedication and you’ll be able to whoop anyone is your school if not the county. Unless their also great boxers/martial artists. Put simply you learn a valuable life skill and never be messed with. People can tell when someone knows how to fight. This isn’t negotiable learn it.

Book #7 – Starting Strength

Alright you can fight, you can get women, and there’s no doubt you also want to get strong. This book will take care of that. This book will show you the simplest way to add strength to your body through proper strength training. You’ll be doing presses, squats, and deadlifts. It’ll provide you will a usable workout routine instead of one that’s all fluff like you’d find in a magazine. This’ll put weight on your frame and strength in your muscles. Stick with the program and you’ll be one of the strongest lifters for your weight class.

Book #8 – Bachelor Pad Economics

Something that you’ll have to learn at some point or another (and the earlier the better) is that money is the foundation of your freedom. Without money you won’t have freedom it’s as simple as that. The whole “money can’t buy you happiness” is bullshit spouted by poor people who are rationalizing their failures. You need money. Money is incredibly important. This book will teach you the basics of finance but in a non-boring way. Quite a feat. Without money you can do nothing, money is the foundation of your freedom. Understand this.

Book #9 – How To Win Friends & Influence People

You may have a dislike of people in general and enjoy having your solitude away from them. Hey nothing wrong with that but you have to learn how to interact with people. Everything is decided by people on this planet, no man is an island. Even if you hate people you have to learn people skills to succeed in life. Do what you have to do not what you want to do. You’re going to have to learn to charm people, build rapport with them, and get them to like you. No matter what you’re station is in life, this is an essential skill.

Book #10 – Sell Or Be Sold

Sales is another fundamental life skill. No matter what you do you’re either selling or being sold. Just because your job title doesn’t say “salesman” doesn’t mean you aren’t one. We are all salesmen whether we want to be or not. We are always selling our ideas and desires. Convincing someone to your way of thought is selling. Selling is simply convincing others to take an action you want them to take. Learning the basics of it is fundamental to getting what you want from others. We are all salesmen regardless if we want to be or not. Learn the basics.

Summary

Like I said above this isn’t a comprehensive list, simply something to get you headed in the right direction. I hope you get so much value from these that you continue reading for life. Reading is addictive and in a good way. When you get so much value out of a book then it makes it easy to read more. All of these books contain tons of practical advice and will like I said give you a huge leg up on all of your peers and competition. If you want to be the best then you have to read. Now get to it.

If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.

-Charles Sledge

Charles Sledge

4 Comments

      • found out about another book lately, it’s called “Iron John” by Robert Bly, have you heard of that one?

        • Yeah I’m honestly not a fan of it. Too much hippy dippy bullshit that gets in the way of the good nuggets in it. However others have found great value in it. And there is some value there if you can past all the crap. But not my style.

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