"A man who seeks counsel from his emotions lives a fucked up life." — Rob Arpa

Rob Arpa is back, and this one is for any man who has ever wondered what actually happens inside a men's circle — and whether it's for him.

Nicky and Rob get into the three things a man can expect when he walks into a Sovereign Circle meeting for the first time. Content: conversations about standards, discipline, fatherhood, and the kind of topics that never come up at the golf course or over beers with the boys. Inspections: a live, structured process where a man brings a real problem to the group — not to get answers, but to get asked the hard questions he's been avoiding until he's ready to face them himself. And masculine conversation: direct, unfiltered, and completely unlike what most men have been conditioned to expect from any room they've walked into since they were boys.

Nicky also gets personal about fatherhood — what it looks like to raise sons who become world-beaters, and what it means when your boys are the ones who are too busy for you, not the other way around. Rob talks about 20 years of watching men make big changes inside circles like this — not small ones, big ones. Getting married. Going self-employed. Getting out of relationships they had no business being in. The kind of changes a man can't make alone.

They also get into nutrition, the male suicide crisis, and why $100 a month is either peanuts or the most honest conversation a man will have with himself about where his priorities actually are.

Learn more and connect: 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

Resources mentioned: The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle (men's membership community): https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program Genius Foods by Max Lugavere: https://www.maxlugavere.com/book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius — referenced for the wrestling match analogy

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.

SMP 267: Billou & Arpa - What Can You Expect From A Sovereign Circle Men's Meeting?

"A man who has standards but repeatedly compromises them will stop trusting himself and cannot be trusted by other men." — Nicky Billou

Rob Arpa is back alongside Nicky for a conversation that started with something real — a situation inside the Sovereign Man circle that put the question of standards front and center. A long-standing member, someone who had been in a leadership role, violated a group standard, got called on it, and chose to walk rather than address it. That's the jumping-off point. What follows is one of the most grounded conversations Nicky and Rob have had about what it means to hold a standard — and what it costs when you don't.

Standards are the minimum acceptable behavior. Not a ceiling, not a punishment — the floor. And the question isn't whether a man or an organization has them. Every group has them. The question is whether they're upheld. Rob makes a point that lands hard: men who step into a high-standards environment start to change in ways they couldn't manage alone. That's not coincidence. That's compounding, and standards are what make compounding possible.

Nicky and Rob get practical — early is on time as a personal standard worth living by, consistent exercise, reading physical books in an age of constant scrolling, and the organizational standards inside Sovereign Man that have shaped what the circle has become over the last two years. They also get honest about the difference between a genuine friend and an acquaintance who tells you what you want to hear, and why a buddy group inside a men's circle is one of the few places most men will ever get a straight answer.

If you've been drifting — or if you're in a group and wondering why it isn't holding together — this episode is worth your time.

Learn more and connect: The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

Resources mentioned: 75 Hard (mental toughness program by Andy Frisella): https://andyfrisella.com/pages/75hard-info The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle (men's membership community): https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program

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.

SMP 266: Billou & Arpa - What Are Standards? Why Do They Matter?

"There's a fine line between persistence and failure to accept reality. But if you're going to err on one side or the other, you want to err on being overly persistent rather than giving up too soon." — Tim Leatherman

Tim Leatherman is back on the show for his third appearance — and this time he's coming with a new book, The Leatherman Book, releasing October 6th. If you caught his earlier episodes, you know this man has a story worth sitting with. If this is your first time hearing him, you're in for one of the most honest founder conversations the show has produced.

The Leatherman story starts with a budget road trip through Europe and Iran in 1974, a $300 used car in Amsterdam, and a pocket knife that kept getting the job started but couldn't finish it. Tim jotted down a note: add pliers to a pocket knife. Eight years later, after rejection from every knife company and tool company he approached, after mailing over 100 catalogs and getting zero responses, a purchase order from Cabela's showed up at his home address. The company that grew from that moment now ships 2 million tools a year, all made in Portland, Oregon.

What makes this conversation worth your time is what Tim reveals about the discipline behind the persistence. He built to federal military specifications before he had a single commercial order. He accepted brutal feedback from a catalog buyer in Seattle, stripped out features he loved, and came back six months later with a better product. He talks about his four-part design philosophy — highest quality, most functionality, smallest space, least weight — and explains why he treats his 25-year warranty as a profit center, not a cost center. These aren't abstractions. They're the decisions that built an American icon.

Tim also reflects on the three lessons he took from eight years in the garage: start with a clear goal, learn what you need to know as you go, and study hard. He puts it plainly — unless you're all in, your chances of success are greatly diminished.

Learn more and connect: Leatherman Tool Group: https://www.leatherman.com The Leatherman Book (releasing October 6th): https://www.leatherman.com

Resources mentioned: The Leatherman Book by Tim Leatherman — https://www.leatherman.com Leatherman Tool Group (made in USA, Portland Oregon) — https://www.leatherman.com John Wooden's Pyramid of Success — https://www.coachwooden.com The Sovereign Man Movement — https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle (men's membership community) — https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

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.

SMP 265: Tim Leatherman - The Leatherman Multitool Story

"I can only ever be out of integrity with myself. That's the only place you can be out of integrity." — Patrick Francey

Patrick Francey has been running businesses since the late 1970s, and the thing he keeps coming back to is not strategy. It is whether a man is actually aligned with his own values, or living out somebody else's and wondering why nothing holds.

He makes integrity structural rather than moral. A bridge has structural integrity; degrade it and it collapses. Your core values are that bridge. Operate against them long enough and the collapse arrives as stress, work that stops working, relationships that fall apart — and most men will blame every part of their life except the misalignment causing it. The uncomfortable part: many men cannot name their top five values, so they are making decisions out of values their parents installed decades ago.

He no longer uses the word mindset. Mindset is how you handle what is outside you. What he works on now is self-mastery, which is an inside job — hidden beliefs, old traumas, and the willingness to be misunderstood on the way through. Change has a cost, and he does not pretend otherwise: careers end, friendships drift, and sometimes so do the closest relationships a man has.

There is also a straight, useful stretch on selling — why you are already a salesman whether you admit it or not, why an integrity-based sale is the easy one, and the story about the dog food that will change how you diagnose a problem in your own business.

Learn more and connect: Real Estate Investment Network: https://reincanada.com The Everyday Millionaire podcast: https://theeverydaymillionaire.ca

Resources mentioned: The Everyday Millionaire podcast, hosted by Patrick Francey: https://theeverydaymillionaire.ca Real Estate Investment Network: https://reincanada.com The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle, the men's membership community: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program

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.

SMP 264: Patrick Francey - Self-Mastery Is An Inside Job

"I'm not doing this just for you, I'm doing this for your sons. I'm doing this for your grandsons. You gotta show him you're fit, because if he sees you're a fat slob, he's gonna be a fat slob." — Nicky Billou

Most men know what they should be doing with their health. The problem isn't information — it's the absence of a real decision, a real plan, and someone who will hold them accountable to both. Brian Parana has been working in health, fitness, and nutrition for 23 years, and he works exclusively with men who are stuck in the cycle — losing weight, gaining it back, never making it stick.

In this episode, Nicky and Brian cover the mechanics of getting unstuck: the five pillars of Brian's 100-day fat loss program The Call to Rise, why men resist asking for help even when they've been struggling for decades, and what it actually takes to build a lifestyle a man can maintain long term. They also get into something most health coaches never touch — the generational argument. The man who gets serious about his health isn't just doing it for himself. He's setting a standard his sons will either follow or inherit the absence of.

Nicky also shares his own story candidly — 12 years of writing down "get in shape" as a goal, gaining weight every single year, and what finally shifted. And Brian talks about fathering his own four kids through the noise of phones, social media, and the attention economy — and why he's relentless about making sure his sons create more than they consume.

If your health has been on the list and never off the ground, this one is for you.

Learn more and connect: The Call to Rise (100-day fat loss program): https://www.thecalltorise.com Driven for Health Podcast: search "Driven for Health" on your podcast platform

Resources mentioned: The Call to Rise — Brian's 100-day fat loss program for men: https://www.thecalltorise.com Garrett J. White / Warrior Week — men's performance and identity work The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle (men's membership community): https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program

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.

SMP 263: Brian Parana - Your Sons Deserve Better From You

"However much discomfort you can tolerate is going to equal how much success you achieve, and there's not really any way around that." — Keyvan Billou

Nicky Billou sits down with his son Keyvan for one of the most honest conversations on this show about what it takes to succeed as a young man right now — not theory, not motivation, but the actual habits, decisions, and mentality that produce real results at 20 years old.

Keyvan graduated with an A average from St. Michael's College School, one of Toronto's most respected private schools, and had a university spot lined up. He walked away from it. His reasoning is worth hearing: if you want results above the majority, you cannot follow the same path as the majority. He went to work at Hammer Fitness, built a client base from scratch, and now coaches people both in person and online — available to clients nearly any hour of the day because the work doesn't feel like work.

The conversation goes deep on what actually produces that kind of drive in a young man. Keyvan talks about discomfort tolerance as a trainable skill, not a fixed trait — how going from struggling through 8-hour shifts to running 14-hour days was the result of deliberate, incremental exposure to more. They also get honest about the role of parents, the cost of never hearing no, and the four qualities — decisiveness, process-commitment, coachability, and resourcefulness — that determine whether anyone succeeds at anything.

If you have a young man in your life who is drifting, or if you are a young man trying to figure out what kind of man you want to become, this episode has something direct and useful to say.

Learn more and connect: Keyvan Billou on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kvon.bilou Hammer Fitness: search Hammer Fitness Toronto

Resources mentioned: 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 Peterson Academy: https://www.petersonacademy.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.

SMP 262: Keyvan Billou - How To Succeed As A Young Man In 2026

"Once you give up your balls to the woman, she's gonna fight to hold on to them, and it's a fight to get them back." — Rob Arpa

Rob Arpa is back, and this one gets into territory most men sense but rarely hear named clearly.

The concept is the Eve disease — drawn from the story of Adam and Eve, and described by a pastor as the innate drive in women toward control over their man. Not something taught, not something cultural. Something deeper. And according to that pastor, the mark of a good woman is not the absence of this drive but her ongoing choice to keep it in check.

Nicky and Rob work through what this looks like in real relationships — the shit tests, the moment a man holds his ground and things shift, and what happens when he doesn't. They get into the Stefan Aarnio parable about what women actually want, Justin Sterling's teaching on what it costs a man to give up his frame, and the broader principle that runs through all of it: tolerance is permission. What a man allows, he invites. That's true in marriage. It's true in culture. It's true in any institution where men have quietly accepted things they should have refused.

This is a direct, honest conversation between two men who have lived this stuff — not a theory lecture. If you've ever felt the slow drift of your own life moving in a direction you didn't choose, this episode names what's happening and points toward what to do about it.

Learn more & connect: The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

Resources mentioned: The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle (men's membership community): https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program Sterling Institute men's weekends (referenced via Justin Sterling's teaching on men and control) Hard Times Create Strong Men by Stefan Aarnio (parable of the witch and what women want)

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.

SMP 261: Billou & Arpa - The Eve Disease

"The number one virtue that a man can have is loyalty. Francesco Totti demonstrated that more than anyone." — Nicky Billou

Nicky Billou goes solo in this episode, using the 2026 World Cup as his starting point for a straight-talking examination of what modern football reveals about the state of manhood in the West.

The argument is simple and uncomfortable: elite young footballers today are technically outstanding and humanly unfinished. José Mourinho said it years ago — Steven Gerrard was already a man at 23. Today's 23-year-olds are boys. Not because they lack talent, but because everything in their development has been managed, protected, and softened. The same forces are at work across Western culture: no unsupervised childhood, delayed responsibility, digital distraction, and institutions that treat discomfort as something to be eliminated rather than endured.

Nicky names the men who embodied a different standard — Gerrard, Totti, Maldini, Baresi, Roy Keane, Lothar Matthäus — men who carried enormous responsibility as young men because hardship and consequence were still part of how boys became men. And he makes the case for Francesco Totti as perhaps the greatest embodiment of a single, essential masculine virtue: loyalty. Totti turned down Real Madrid, Manchester United, and every other club that came calling with money and trophies. He lived by a code. And when he finally led Roma to a Serie A title, the meaning of it was something no mercenary career could ever produce.

Football, Nicky says, is a metaphor for manhood. The great ones are admired not just because they win, but because at their best they reveal the virtues that make men great. Character is not an accident. It is deliberately forged — and right now, not enough people are doing the forging.

Learn more & connect The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle: https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle

Resources mentioned The Sovereign Man Movement: https://www.sovereignman.ca Sovereign Circle (men's membership community): https://www.sovereignman.ca/sovereign-circle Battle Ready Program: https://www.sovereignman.ca/store/p/battle-ready-program Steven Gerrard — Liverpool FC captain and England international Francesco Totti — Roma captain, career loyalty, Serie A

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.

SMP 260: Football As A Metaphor For Manhood

"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.

SMP 259: Abteen Vaziri - Fighting For Freedom

"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.

SMP 258: PAUL PAPE - The Power Of 'Yes, And'

“A real man is sovereign over his own life. He takes full responsibility for becoming a better man, and owns his own successes and failures. But he also understands the value of being a part of a band

The Sovereign Man Podcast · Zencastr

The Sovereign Man Podcast

“A real man is sovereign over his own life. He takes full responsibility for becoming a better man, and owns his own successes and failures. But he also understands the value of being a part of a band of brothers, the kind that have his back, and he can call at 3 AM if he’s stuck in a jail cell, because they’ll come and get him. He understands that just like a wolf pack, the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.” — Nicky Billou Welcome to the Sovereign Man Podcast where we have the conversations that matter to you as a man, and inspire you to become the best version of yourself. You’ll learn from the best business, career, financial, relationship, and mans skills experts from around the world. The Sovereign Man Podcast is for motivated men like you who want to win in today’s world. We equip you to become better in every area of your life from establishing mastery over yourself, to defining your purpose, strengthening your family and your relationships, becoming a better leader, and learning man skills. Each week I have real, unscripted conversations with real men, successful men, and men who give a darn.