"The US team went out there and forgot everything. They went in there with no confidence, and Belgium took advantage of that and ate their lunch." — Abteen Vaziri

Abteen Vaziri is back — and this time the conversation goes deep on football, freedom, and what both demand of a man.

Nicky and Abteen cover the 2026 World Cup with the passion of two men who genuinely love the game: Argentina's impossible comeback against Egypt, Norway and Erling Haaland's emergence as the tournament's most dangerous force, and the painful moment-by-moment breakdown of how the US team — talented, well-coached, and ready on paper — completely lost their nerve against Belgium. The question underneath it all: what separates the teams that hold it together from the ones that fold? The answer keeps coming back to confidence, masculine composure, and the willingness to play your game under maximum pressure.

The conversation also turns to Iran. Abteen's grandfather was the goalkeeper for the Iranian national team, and his connection to this goes back generations. They talk about the players the Islamic Republic kept off the roster for political reasons, Sardar Azmoun's absence, and the conviction — shared by both men — that a free Iran will one day send its real team to the world stage. And they make the case, plainly, for why Reza Pahlavi is the name Iran needs to rally behind.

This one's for men who love football and understand what it costs to walk into a high-stakes moment without your head on straight.

Learn more & connect:

Abteen Vaziri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abteenvaziri/

Reza Pahlavi / Crown Prince of Iran: https://www.rezapahlavi.org

Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca

Resources mentioned:

Sovereign Circle: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program

Reza Pahlavi / Crown Prince of Iran: https://www.rezapahlavi.org

Patrick Bet-David / Valuetainment: https://www.valuetainment.com

You're invited to come to a Sovereign Circle meeting to experience it for yourself. To learn more, go to https://www.sovereignman.ca/. While you're there, check out the Battle Ready program and check out the store for Sovereign Man t-shirts, hats, and books.

"Living the life of yes and — it's worked out really well for me. It makes people give other people palpitations because it's so unsteady. But with great highs come sometimes great lows, and it helps you respect every bit of it." — Paul Pape

Paul Pape is one of those guys who is genuinely hard to categorize — and that's exactly the point. He's a custom fabricator, a creative entrepreneur, a business consultant, and the founder of Gamify Business. Over 20-plus years, he's made over 3,000 custom pieces for clients ranging from private individuals to multibillion-dollar companies, including animatronic horses for The Tonight Show, a Han Solo carbonite casting for Kevin Smith that came with some unusual modifications, and a fully functional bomb that was supposed to be a ring box.

His core operating philosophy is borrowed from improv theater: yes, and. You never say no. You say yes, and you figure it out. It's a principle that has made him a lot of money, made him impossible to replace, and given him a life doing exactly what he loves — on his own terms, at his own pace.

Nicky and Paul dig into what that philosophy actually requires: the willingness to keep learning, to treat failure as a step rather than a stop, and to refuse the comfortable lie that creativity has no commercial value. They also go deep on the disappearing culture of trades and hands-on mastery — why fewer men are choosing it, what that costs all of us, and why the men willing to get dirty right now are sitting on a wide-open opportunity.

This is a conversation about craft, ownership, and what it means to build a life with your hands and your mind on your own terms.

Learn more & connect:

Paul Pape and Gamify Business: https://www.gamifybusiness.com

Resources mentioned:

Gamify Business: https://www.gamifybusiness.com

The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca

Sovereign Circle: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program

Robert Bly, Iron John: https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306824264

You're invited to come to a Sovereign Circle meeting to experience it for yourself. To learn more, go to https://www.sovereignman.ca/. While you're there, check out the Battle Ready program and check out the store for Sovereign Man t-shirts, hats, and books.

"We all have to showboat. We all have to be that actor on stage 24/7. There's no place for us to take off the masks and just be ourselves." — Shane Wicks

Shane Wicks is the founder of Hyperactive Men, an Ottawa-based men's development organization built on four pillars: strength and discipline, emotional intelligence and relationships, financial intelligence and strategic thinking, and command and presence. He joins Nicky for one of the more honest conversations this show has had in a while.

Shane opens with a line that stops the conversation cold: his son died at 3 months old on a Sunday, and he went to work Monday morning. That's not a story about cruelty or indifference. That's a story about what men were trained to do — push, perform, pretend. And it's exactly why so many men are carrying Pandora's boxes they're terrified to open.

What follows is a real conversation between two men who lead other men and know how far the problem actually runs. The 200-to-1 ratio of women's resources to men's resources. The hunter's patience that modern life has systematically destroyed. The math behind why every man doing this work is an ally, not a competitor — because when you do the numbers on how many men are truly lost versus how many men are actually being reached, the scale of the challenge is humbling. There's also a straight exchange about what happens to military veterans when they leave the service, why positioning men's work as personal development rather than mental health makes all the difference, and how training philosophy — going to failure with perfect form rather than forcing weight and reps — applies the same discipline to the body that good men's work applies to the character.

Nicky also recommends two specific programs for men carrying unresolved trauma: the Hoffman Quadrinity Process and the Sterling Men's Weekend legacy programs. Both are named, both are worth following up.

Learn more & connect:

Hyperactive Men: https://www.hyperactive.men

Email: better@hyperactive.men

Resources mentioned:

Hyperactive Men: https://www.hyperactive.men

The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca

Sovereign Circle: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

The Sterling Men's Weekend (Sterling Institute legacy programs): https://www.sterlinginstitute.org

The Hoffman Quadrinity Process: https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org

You're invited to come to a Sovereign Circle meeting to experience it for yourself. To learn more, go to https://www.sovereignman.ca/. While you're there, check out the Battle Ready program and check out the store for Sovereign Man t-shirts, hats, and books.