--- podcast: The Survival Podcast episode: 3841 title: "Boys to Men — Transforming Young Males Into Non-Brittle Adults" host: Jack Spirko guest: Hans Hageman date: 2026-05-07 tags: [mentoring, boys, masculinity, antifragility, prison-reform, education, breath-work, permaculture] --- # TSP #3841 — Boys to Men ## Overview Hans Hageman grew up in a drug rehab center in East Harlem, graduated Princeton and Columbia Law, left corporate law to start a school back in the same neighborhood. Death threats, gun contracts, cross-burning, and ultimately programs in maximum security juvenile prisons teaching breath work, gardening, classics, and drone piloting. Core message: boys need challenges, purpose, and old male mentors — build antifragility, not fragility. ## Hans Hageman's Story - Born Chicago, raised in East Harlem at Exodus House — father's residential drug treatment center - Father: white, poor Nebraska farm family; Mother: African-American, Great Migration from South - 60 recently released incarcerated men and Vietnam vets living below their apartment = "playmates" - Scholarship to Collegiate School for Boys (founded 1628), JFK Jr. classmate - Princeton → Columbia Law → prestigious corporate law firms - Mother: "What happened to saving the world?" - **$50,000 challenge** from brother → JFK Jr. gave $25k → school started back in East Harlem ### Death Threats & Armed Defense - Late '80s/early '90s: crack epidemic, 2,100-2,200 homicides/year in NYC - Local crack gang took out contract on Hans and his brother — school = more police = bad for business - Police captain: "We can expedite a carry permit and get you a discount on body armor" - **Carried a Colt 1911** — permit in 2 weeks (Army Reserve background) - White cops: "If anything happens to these brothers, your people will float in the East River" - Black Muslims from Brooklyn: "We know your father's white, but you're doing the job for our children. We'll soldier in that community." - Gang negotiated: "Can't sell in front of our building. Take the contract off." — treaty honored - Irish cop off-duty every night for 3 months: "If they're going to get you, they're going to get me too" ### Hudson Valley: Cross Burning - Moved family to see grass, not concrete → **cross burned on lawn within 1 week** - Oil delivery guy: "Join the volunteer fire department" → oldest recruit → never had another problem ### Goshen Secure Center: Maximum Security Juvenile Prison - Teenage boys convicted in adult court of extremely violent crimes - Admin: "Don't ask what they've done or you'll never come back" - **Program:** vegetable gardens, mindfulness/breath work, calisthenics (yoga rejected — "unless you come back as a 20-year-old Asian woman in spandex") - MS-13 kid made dirt angels: "This reminds me of my grandfather's land in El Salvador" - Breath work results: back pain gone, headaches gone, fewer nightmares - **Performance breath work** (Dr. Belisa Vranich — law enforcement/military, not spiritual) - EFT tapping: usable alone in cells at night ## Key Concepts ### Fragile → Resilient → Antifragile - Fragile: breaks under stress - Resilient: returns to baseline - Antifragile: uses stress/trauma as fuel, comes back stronger - "They have to have a vocabulary for it. They have to know they're not alone." ### Elephant Analogy (Spirko) - When ivory hunters killed old bull elephants, young males formed violent gangs — raided villages, killed people - When herds aged again and old bulls returned, they disciplined the young — problem solved - Same dynamic in inner cities: no old elephants ### "Become an ancestor worth remembering" - Hans's North Star: does this move me closer to that? - Spirko: "Make the most of your dash" — the hyphen between birth and death dates ### Breath Work - Stimulus → space (all our freedom) → response - Breath work helps find the right choice in that space - Boys wanted *certification* — not just practice, but credentials for employment - Works alongside CBT/talk therapy: "Until they know where trauma lives in their bodies..." ## Post-Release Skills Program Hans's vision for incarcerated youth nearing release: 1. Breath work coach certification 2. Mental Health First Aid certification 3. Drone pilot training (agricultural spraying, medical delivery) 4. Cooking (World Central Kitchen — Chef José Andrés) 5. FEMA CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) 6. Boulder Outdoor Survival School 7. Photo magnet business ($800 equipment, six-figure potential) ## Systemic Critique ### Educational Inversion - School claims success: C-student went to college → dropped out → barista. Failure: welder making $80-120k, family, happy - "Measuring success by metrics that favor the institution using the metric" ### White Liberal Racism - Taught classics (Shakespeare, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Sun Tzu) to black kids in Mississippi — 60 kids showed up 3 weekends, 4 hours each - White liberal board members: "These people will not understand this" — shut it down - Board took $1M for "civil rights site" (broken barn) instead of drone training/jobs for youth - "Dark tourism" business: profit from civil rights history, do nothing for current residents - Spirko: "The most racist demographic in the United States today are wealthy white liberals" ### AI & Future of Work - Truck driving jobs gone in 10 years (autonomous vehicles) - Hans built **ForgeAI.coach** — personal coaching app, doesn't scrape ChatGPT - "Not every kid wants to be a scholar. Some just want meaning and purpose giving back." ## Practical Advice > "Pick out small challenges where there's a decent chance for that young person to win. Too often we avoid challenges with young people, particularly boys." Examples: 10K race, jiu-jitsu tournament, debate competition, 1-2 day survival solo, community vegetable garden ## Book: *The Antifragile Boy* - For teachers, mentors, parents, and teenagers - Short and simple — bringing it into prisons - Core: "Instead of making things easier when they fall, teach them that what happened can be fuel" ## CTA: Combat Arts - Every young man needs to know how to fight with their hands - Without it, they default to knives and guns - Marine combatatives instructor or BJJ - People who train in combat arts don't cause trouble — they're parasympathetic, they know they can handle themselves ## Key Quotes > "It is not your job to raise children. If you raise children, you end up with an 18-year-old adult child. We're trying to raise adults." > "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response." > "You've taken a lot from the world around you. Now it's your turn to give back." > "I don't intend to lose." > "Become an ancestor worth remembering." > "If you don't have strong male role models prepared to be active in their lives, they're going to divert to whoever's got the loudest voice and the scariest presence." > "The best time to look for peace is before the war."