Set The Standard

Top 5 Must Read Books For 2025 If You're a Man #258

• Corey Boutwell • Season 1 • Episode 258

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If you’re new to my page my name’s Corey Boutwell. I’m the founder and CEO of men’s personal development company Set The Standard. I’m a professional bodybuilder, I have coached over 300 men to their full potential and created a multi six figure business in just 3 years. This podcast is where I share EVERYTHING I learn along the way.

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Here are the books mentioned in the podcast: 

The Amazing Development of Men by Alison A. Armstrong - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JZFLGJ6

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051ANPZQ

The Breakup Manual for Men by Andrew Ferebee - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D5T3DEI

Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bet-David - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BZW5K4B

Hard Times Create Strong Men by Stefan Aarnio - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QGH9L3L

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to 2025 and in this episode, I'm going to show you the five most impactful books that had on me this year, especially as a man. So if you're a man and you know that you care about your own growth, you want to be a provider, you want to be a protector, you are focusing in some sort of business, you want to get into business or you crush it, or you already are crushing it in business, but but for some reason you're feeling stuck, stagnant. Things aren't working the way out as much as you've attached your mind to the outcomes of what it was supposed to look like and it's starting to make you maybe panic a little bit. This is going to be the best situation for you, especially like. What happens in those situations is relationships can feel shitty. You can feel lost. Even though you're on purpose and you know what you're doing, you still feel lost. You feel unsure of yourself and you start giving your time away to everyone else. You start wearing all of their emotions and then you get stressed out and pissed off and resentful at people, and then you get frustrated like what the hell? Life is good. Things are working. Why am I so frustrated? Why do I have no time are working. Why am I so frustrated? Why do I have no time and why am I stressed out?

Speaker 1:

These books 2025 are an absolute must. As a man like the, I've been reading those in 2024 and I was like, wow, I wish everyone that I coached and everyone in my community could just implement these on their brains, which is what we do when we talk about it. In set the standard. I've got a men's personal development community and we teach fitness, emotional intelligence, confidence, charisma, social media and purpose. They're like the main things that we work on, and I think these five books are the most important books that you could listen to that are going to help you with all those, probably except fitness. It'll get you motivated for fitness, that's for sure, but there's not any like fitness hacks in any of these. But anyway, let's get straight into it, because I think these are absolutely incredible. So the first book that I think is insane and you can listen to all these they're audiobooks as well and we'll put the links in the video below so that you can just listen to them straight away.

Speaker 1:

The first one that I think is going to be the Amazing Development of Men, expanded in the second edition Every Man's Journey from Knight to Prince to King by Alison A Armstrong. Now, I have never felt so heard listening to a book before, and the main idea out of this book is essentially how it's written for women, and mainly for them, and how they can understand men better. And the thing is is she has so many men come and read this book because they all go, wow, this is a hundred percent what I'm supposed to feel, and I think the tools and techniques in this book are for men to help teach their partners how to manage them, because it helps us understand essentially what we go through in a midlife crisis how we and how it's supposed to happen, our journey from essentially being a squire and what we're focusing on when we're in our knighthood or when we're in a squire state of our life, when we just want to go out and hunt and kill and have fun right Before we start getting into prince and kingdom hood, which is like, okay, I want to build my empire and actually make it happen. And it talks about all the frustrations in the meantime, the pressure, the anxiety, you know, everything else that comes along with it, and how we struggle to communicate that to women and how they just don't understand and we don't have the words and the language around it. This book teaches you the language that you can have, and one of the most important things that I learned through listening to this book was okay, I'm around this prince and kingdom hood and it's going to be hard for me to be in a relationship that is absolutely thriving if I'm not dedicating myself to building my own empire. And it was like, okay, wow, let's take a second and really communicate this, and unless my partner understands that completely and I've explained it to her, then they're just not going to get it right. So that's the first book I think it's absolutely incredible and essential to listen to.

Speaker 1:

Number two is Models Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson. After I went through a breakup, I listened to this because I was like man, I have to get back into the game at some point in the future and I think that this was one of the best books and it stuck out to me because years ago I read all of the pickup artistry books and they didn't really resonate with me in the most important way, because I found some of the techniques were cool and they were handy and useful, but it always seemed a little bit toxic to me, and he talks about this in this book, and what he talks about is authenticity, the power of vulnerability and the strength that you have by when you are vulnerable and you can deal with rejection. It makes you extremely confident as a man, and there's tools and tips and techniques in here which basically just explain how to go up to people, be yourself, be authentic and show up confidently, and how it's just going to work, not only in your relationship, but in your dating life, your professional life and everywhere else. And that skill that you hone by being extremely honest and truthful and direct with your honesty is just the key to success and I think it's so incredibly important. That's the second book, so I highly recommend it.

Speaker 1:

Number three I highly recommend all these books, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about them right? Number three would be the Breakup Manual for Men Recover from a serious breakup, become stronger and get your ex back, if you want Now. I don't recommend men just to read this when they're going through a breakup. I think this is important anytime that your relationship feels rocky or it feels like you're in a struggle stage, because this is basically preventative medicine that will prevent you from having a breakup. Right? Because when you go through the breakups, like, oh, this is what the process looks like.

Speaker 1:

And I find that most men stay in relationships out of duty and obligation, and that's why there's a statistic of 80% of divorces are brought to the relationship by women, are brought to the relationship by women. 80% of divorces are initiated by women, which is insane. And it's like well, how come men aren't doing this? Well, that duty and that obligation makes them not want to put in boundaries, which is nice guy syndrome. So they're like I don't want to make you feel pain, I don't want to. You know, I've got a duty to be in here and do this and protect and provide. Like who gives a shit about me, I'm doing this for the greater good of everyone. When men in this situation, we all know in relationships and we know this that you have to be the best version of yourself. You know you put the oxygen mask on you before you put it on. You know the baby next to you so that you can help other people. And when you are aware of this and you understand what the breakup process is going to look like and what the boundaries are going to look like and you know how to sort of, you know, pull away, focus on yourself and not focus on anything else. I believe that this is the best way to actually make your relationship insane, like really high quality, lots of love, lots of passion and getting back to feeling amazing. And then, obviously, if you are going for a breakup, it's a must read, because what it also highlights which is really cool is the value that you have in the relationship versus the value that she provides in the relationship as well, and most men put their partners on a pedestal, hence why the relationships break up. So I'm like well, there you go, and I believe that the mindset of this is just so incredibly important.

Speaker 1:

Book number four your next five moves Master the art of business strategy. I love this book. So Patrick Bet-David is an absolute stud and he's from New York and he tells his story around, basically from being a war-torn foreigner in the US states to managing a massive company, and what he does is he teaches you the mindset of how to master strategy in business, but it's also a lot of personal development and self-reflection. In the whole book he's like I did the inner work, I did the self-reflection, I asked the questions and there's like these 83 questions in here that he provides in his website that you can get, which is absolutely insane, and I went through at the end of this year and answered all the questions in my whole life was just I was like, oh man, this is one of the best self-reflection questions to do and to revisit, like they're so specific and really powerful. And then he puts it in a bit of a framework for five steps for how you should apply your inner world and your personal life into your professional life and how you can use it in business. And I believe every man should be trying to get to the top of whatever business that he is in and doing it with his own personal development. That's what Patrick Bette David talks about in this, and I think it's so incredibly important and I'm like, yes, I love everything in this book. It's so good. So you guys are going to be like, oh, I've got to get all these books. I don't really have much criticism on these. There's some other books that I've read that I have criticism on, but these is like pick the one that you think resonates most with you and listen to that.

Speaker 1:

The fifth book on here is Hard Times Create Strong Men, why the World Craves Leadership and how you Can Step Up to Fill the Need. By Stephan Arnio. This is really interesting because he's a real estate guy and he got really I would say frustrated with the way that the world is seeing masculinity and he went to the forest or in the hills and mountains, fasted for like 18 days and just spit this book out. And I think what's really important in this book is it's highlighting the power and the importance of true masculinity and not femininity, and how the world, men are becoming more feminine and women are becoming more masculine, and what men can do like tools, strategies and tips to rise up. Now he tells a lot of stories because, essentially, to rise up, us men have to feel, through whatever we're feeling and then start taking action.

Speaker 1:

And then what happens is because I feel like a lot of people will talk about as men like oh, regardless of the feeling, I go out and take action. That's dismissing your feelings and emotions and I don't think that works because that's just suppressing them, putting them down, and then, however many years later, it's going to come up in you know, temptations, porn, prostitution, drugs, alcohol, burning out, sabotaging your relationship, something like that. When in this which I think is really cool is you understand that I need to feel through this and whatever struggle that I'm going through and feeling through, and then I'm taking action on whatever that is, even when it hurts, even when I'm open, not disregarding it, whilst I'm open, still taking action. Whilst I'm open, still moving forward, making the right decision and focusing your time on building resources and wealth. Like take the time to really have an investment plan, like he said. It's stupid. Like not having one. As a man, Like you have to take care of your finances.

Speaker 1:

He talks about the difference between a loser and a high performer and the difference of what they focus on, and I think it's everything men need to hear from high quality like men or father figures that we didn't get to when we were younger, so I think it's like or when we were growing up. So, and this is for every man, any man who's crushing it in business or just starting business, like wherever you're at, I think this is really important to understand what it's like. He also talks about the importance of fasting, spirituality and men going through hard things physically in order to develop discipline and develop confidence and be the person who can be so much stronger for everyone else and I just thought, as I was, I ended up listening to it like three or four times because I was like, wow, this is like. This is a lot that I needed to hear. And then it also shows in the book how our relationship to our fathers as men really influence us, and we can either take on their traits or reject their traits, and how our fathers didn't understand what good, like high-quality masculinity is and that had been lost, and then how we need to father ourselves.

Speaker 1:

So, whichever one of these books that you resonate with, click the link below, have a listen and let us know what you think Like. I think they're absolutely amazing. 2025, with these at your side at the start of 2025, is going to help you become the most masculine, the most grounded, present, confident and disciplined version of yourself. So I hope you guys like these books. I enjoyed every second of them and big love guys. Smash 2025. It's time to get it. See you in the next one If you want to join. Set the Standard.