How to Ruin Your Life

Name: How to Ruin Your Life
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Ben Stein
ISBN: 9781401909512

Author: Ben Stein

Narrator: Ben Stein

Unabridged: 1 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Hay House LLC

Published: 05/03/2004

Categories: Nonfiction, Self-help, Personal Growth

Synopsis

How to Ruin Your Life is a powerful self-help tool in the form of a work of humor. It is sardonic advice, presented with tongue in cheek, explaining how people can "ruin" their lives. The essays cover topics such as "Convince Yourself That You're All That Matters," Think the Worst of Everyone," "Pour Salt on Those Wounds," and "You Can Change People." Seriously, though, to anyone who reads this book, it is an earnest warning about falling into traps of self-destructive behavior that can ruin any man or woman's life. More than that, it comprises 35 steps that-if read and understood-provide a road map to making life work in the most effective way possible. It is humor and self-help all in one, delivered by Ben Stein, a man who has witnessed more than his share of people who did ruin their lives-as well as those whose lives have been wildly successful.

About The Author

Ben Stein can be seen talking about finance on Fox TV news every week. He is known to many as a movie and television personality but has probably worked more in personal and corporate finance than anything else. He has written about finance for Barron' and The Wall Street Journal for decades and contributes regularly to the AARP' Modern Maturity (now AARP: The Magazine). He was one of the chief busters of the junk bond frauds of the 1980s has been a long-time critic of corporate executives' self-dealing and has written several self-help books about personal finance.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Howard on April 17, 2025

4 Stars for How to Ruin Your Life (audiobook) by Ben Stein read by the author. I just love Ben Stein’s very dry sense of humor. I remember first seeing him in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and then later on his game show on MTV. He has an interesting way of cutting through the nonsense and relating to pe......more

Goodreads review by Marvin on October 14, 2011

This is cute. I like Ben Stein's sarcastic humor despite the execrable documentary Expelled. Mr. Stein notes 35 tips on how to be a failure, all of them common sense. Yet, as a social worker, I know common sense is not as common as it sounds. Of course, one way to ruin your life (my tip, not Mr. Ste......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on December 13, 2017

This sounds like a snarky book - but if you think about it, it's pretty positive. Ben Stein, who has been around plenty of people who have ruined their life, gives a guidebook on how to ruin yours. If you read it, and do the opposite - good things will happen.......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on November 05, 2017

Loved this book......more

Goodreads review by Hope on December 03, 2007

I went through a Ben Stein phase where he and I used to email back and forth. He came here to give a speech and I left my copy of "Tommy and Me" he had previously sent me in the car so my sister bought this for me so I'd have something to get signed. This book is a quick read and it really is good ad......more