The most powerful, self-evidently true and useful work of self–development is Frederick Douglass’s Self–Made Men (SMM). I can’t believe that it took me 55 years to discover it. I could have profited from its cold, commonsense logic during my rebel-without-a-clue formative years.
For Planned Man’s reconstructive, functionalist purposes, SMM contains everything a man needs to know to crush it in this world. And if the straightforward logic of this 19th century Ted Talk was embraced at a cultural and policy level, we could show the world what genuine human progress, American-style looks like.
Read it slowly, with a pen in hand. It’s short, accessible, and profound. In twenty five pages, it offers more truth than many great books. (You can find it free here). It is superior to any self-help book that I’ve come across, and it’s as relevant now as when it was first delivered.
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