Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One

One of my favorite comedic actors. I still laugh when I think of the White Chicks car scene. I loved him Everybody Hates Chris, too. Book is so well written. He is so honest and open about his accomplishments, mistakes, life, hardships and good times. He seems like a great guy! Excellent read. Highly recommend.

Really liked this book. It runs chronologically through his childhood (and living with an alcoholic dad), high school, trying to get a football scholarship in college, scraping by in the NFL for a few years, and his eventual success in Hollywood. He's a guy who's admittedly gotten a fair chunk of therapy in the past few years and has clearly taken time to understand how his upbringing has lead to who he is now, what he likes, and what he's trying to change. He concedes that he was a crappy guy during portions of his life, and also that he was terrible at managing his money and that caused a lot of issues.Also, it's generally interesting to read a memoir from someone who's still working and needs to protect relationships with colleagues. In this respect, it felt to me like he was pulling his punches on everyone from Hollywood and is just really grateful (and somewhat shocked) to have made the fantastic transition to acting that he has.There's no co-writer on here or prominently featured editor, so I'm assuming Mr Crews wrote lion's share of this book himself which is really impressive. Nice, fun read.The biggest issue I have with the book is that there are NO PICTURES! They really should've put some photos in here of him in his NFL uniforms, with the different haircuts he discusses, and as a kid. Based on that I would knock this book down to 4.5 stars if it was possible, but the enjoyment I got was greater than four stars, so I rounded up.

While I was expecting more doses of wisdom, or some kind of guidelines or "rules" for the lessons Terry learned over his life, it didn't stop the book from being a really enjoyable and eye-opening look into the life of a man most people just regard as "the big crazy / silly guy from the Old Spice commercials". It was also eye opening for me to see just how much fanatical religious beliefs can distort a child's perspective at such a young age, being an atheist I'm always looking for the silver linings in religion, and here I think I found that at least Terry seems to have gotten some good core values out of his relationship with religion, despite all of the guilt and unhealthy patterns he's worked long and hard to get past.The determination and refusal to quit throughout the book is really inspiring, and although the book is really more of a memoir / biography than a book on solid advice on being a man, there were still quite a few highlight-able snippets to revisit after reading and really think on. The lessons here about manhood are absorbed through anecdotes and the recollections of his life, not necessarily splayed out for you in a formal sense. So yeah, maybe the title is a little misleading, but it was still a great book and I now look up to Terry in a different light than I previously did.

Terry Crews describes the problems he faced in life with good insight humor and honesty. He got to that point only after many failures, struggles, self assessment, introspection, religion/faith/spirituality and help from psychologists. He was raised in a family where his parents constantly fought and his father beat his mother. He used education and a football scholarship to escape Flint but then could not make it on 6 NFL teams so he moved to Los Angeles to try to use is creative talents (drawing, script writing) to get involved in the movie industry. He lucked out in getting an audition, that a friend told him about, by being fit and athletic. After a sexual indiscretion, and the threat of divorce from his wife, Rebecca, of over 20 years, he went through the process of self discovery, and realized he had been manipulative, non-empathetic, and totally narcissistic in his dealings with people. He describes an incident in which he took an online psychological assessment and realized he was narcissistic. He ran downstairs and told his wife and daughter he discovered he was narcissistic and his wife said: "Ya Think?" Crews says that most of his good decisions were made when he listened to Rebecca. After reading this book I watched Expendables 2, White Chicks, and Idiocracy. Crews has good screen presence especially when given creative space in the comedies. Idiocracy is actually a movie everyone should watch because of the political statement it makes.

Terry Crews was one of my favorite TV dads on "Everybody Hates Chris," and now he's one of my favorite authors.In his captivating narrative journeying from boyhood to manhood, it's clear that time has been spent analyzing "why" we do the things we do in life. I didn't realize how much I've really admired Terry Crews as an actor throughout the years and even more so now after he shared some of his personal trials and tribulations. As he reflected on certain movies or TV shows, I laugh at certain memories he triggered from enjoying his work. To now know some of what he was dealing with at the time makes me appreciate his work that much more. From the prologue alone, I knew that many of his fatherly characteristics displayed on "Everybody Hates Chris," reflected his personality and influence. What's clear to me is that this man loves his wife!!It's a book I had to force myself to put down because I didn't want it to end, yet I still read it in 3 days.

Crews came from a harsh background, experienced the highs of an NFL life and the temptations that come with it, and lived to examine himself and his flaws in a way that through his story you can feel inspired to do the same. The cast of people who checked him and challenged him to do better are motivational as well, and you feel for them while wanting Terry to do better - and, spoiler alert, he does. Simultaneously a cautionary tale about letting things get to your head, and a story of humility and redemption. Good read!

This is such a great book. Very well written with a lot of inspiration. I found myself finishing this in just a few days

Picked this up after listening to Terry Crews on the Tim Ferris podcast.It's an excellent and easy-to-read biography. I don't usually read biographies, but my interest was piqued by the issues he'd discussed in the podcast. I'd honestly assumed he'd jumped from NFL to acting without any tumbles, and it was refreshing to see behind that curtain. Terry still seems larger than life to me, but he seems more 'real' after reading this.Enjoyable and would recommend if curious about this real-life superman.

Great book about the mans life and truly inspiring. Although I would advise you all to check out his youtube channel, especially the 'men event' series if you want even more inspiration. To be honest you can get most of the knowledge he has given to us online. The wisdom he gives in the book isnt as in depth as that gems he drops in some of his interviews.

What a man, his lifes work from start to stardom. When you see his film after reading this book you will see a differnt side to him and understand the stuggles he went through to get this far in life.

This book is a god send. A witty, thoughtful, inspiring story of journeying to manhood that made me feel validated and laugh my head off.

Really good insight into Terry's life and how he got through the sturggles he did.