My name is
Traver Boehm.

I’m the founder of all things UNcivilized.
Welcome to my world.

My name is
Traver Boehm.

I’m the founder of all things UNcivilized.

Welcome to my world.

I was born on a late January afternoon in Connecticut and the strongest recollection I have from my childhood was the overwhelming desire to become a ninja.

the overwhelming desire to become a ninja.

School-aged Traver Boehm in front of open school bus doors

Nothing less. Nothing more.

I was at peace with this decision and as a seven-year-old, it seemed quite reasonable and sound. 

One day that dream disintegrated. I can’t tell you exactly when. It came though, the day when the outside world began to insist I act “civilized.” When it wasn’t quite safe to dream anymore; it was time to grow up.

“How can you make a living as, you know, a blonde-haired would-be Japanese assassin?”

My teen years were spent rebelling against American suburbs — going from the absolute free reign of an entire city to needing my mom to drive me to swim practice every day.

By 17, I was lost and angry. And I stayed that way for another 22 years.

To this day, “freedom” is still my number one goal;
to be unencumbered by the cultural mom-driven minivan of life.

Sure, I had the immense privilege of bouncing around the globe protecting billionaires as a bodyguard in my 20’s — drinking shitty wine to ring in the New Year with Indian porters in Delhi, surfing waves the size of apartment buildings in Nicaragua, and dazzling Thai gamblers with how many punches to the face I could take fighting Muay Thai in Chang Mai.

I’ve stuck acupuncture needles in homeless HIV patients, held the hands of dying men while volunteering in hospice, and I spent a month alone in a pitch-black room (don’t recommend it) in Guatemala. I have completed Boulder Outdoor Survival School’s 28-Day Field Course, opened my own Crossfit box, and illegally run the Boston Marathon (I’d go for the dark room over this again).

I’ve also driven my partner home from the ER following a miscarriage, lost my Crossfit business, and been served divorce papers a few months later. I started drinking and smoking more to bypass some of the pain. 

I had everything and I lost everything. I’m no stranger to rock bottom after, gosh, “having it all.”

I never had it all. I had what I was civilized to believe was “it all.” But there at Rock Bottom began the marination and expansion, the rising after the god-awful time of loss. 

In hindsight, I wasn’t actually lost.

I had just never been forced to actually sit down long enough to answer a few key questions:

Traver participating in a blindfolded workshop exercise

  • Who am I?
  • Who am I as a man?
  • What does my pain want to teach me that I’m still too afraid to learn?

Traver participating in a blindfolded workshop exercise

I worked hard to alchemize my pain and solidify the lessons that came out of it to turn all of it into something good.

It was then that I looked at the men around me I realized — oh fuck — we’re all in pain and we’ve got nowhere to put it.

Follow any of my work and it’s clear what I’m after — a shift in the collective male consciousness. And a shift in the collective consciousness about men. I’m hoping to spark an epidemic of rampant high self-esteem, men who understand their pain, and women who feel safe because they actually are safe. 

Seems highly UNreasonable, so I’m going for it.

hands prying apart a dog's mouth which are baring fangs

If you’re in pain, I get it. I’m still in pain.

I haven’t had a drink in seven years but I have a feeling if I did, I’d whisper to you that my entire body of work is made up of all the things I wish I understood so I didn’t have to go through the pain of learning through loss: 

I don’t understand why the world works the way it does, why it’s not a kinder place and safer space.

hands prying apart a dog's mouth which are baring fangs

It fucks me up knowing there’s a guy out there right now who’s going to wake up tomorrow morning and pick up a gun because he feels like he has no other choices. I lie in bed at night wondering how I can reach him. Maybe he’s you.

I don’t understand why there’s so much cruelty and injustice in a world described as “civilized.” Why child sex trafficking is still even remotely possible in 2022, for real. Why war feels like a national sport here in the US, and people can be mean to animals. We don’t make a lot of sense as a species do we?

Also, why does everyone think their particular recipe for brussel sprouts is going to be the one to sway me after 46 years of failed attempts? Wrapping them in bacon is an insult to the bacon, please stop doing that.

I guess it’s not my place to understand it all, at least not yet. But it is my place to use the platforms I have to make a difference in the how’s.

How we think, live, eat, fuck, and breathe; how we connect and what we do with our one precious life.

I know men like I know the back of my hand; how we think, what’s behind our behavior, and most importantly — our unique challenges in the modern landscape.

Work With Traver

It took years for all of it to come together.

In 2009 after flipping a coin with my then business partner I got stuck with the task of writing my first blog post for our business. 

It was terrible. 

Truly. 

But I kept writing. 

man (wearing a cow mask) looking down sadly at a big mac

In 2018 after writing my first book Today I Rise, I had an interesting conversation with a man who ate too much McDonald’s. When I shared the story with a buddy of mine, he asked me the single most impactful question of my life —

“When was the last time you ate McDonald’s?”

My answer was succinct and changed everything. Again.

“I don’t eat that shit, that’s civilian food and I want to be anything but civilized.”

man (wearing a cow mask) looking down sadly at a big mac

And it clicked.

That was the day I started the fastest growing men’s movement on the planet by insisting on becoming UNcivilized.

I had to go back, back, all the way back before someone told me I couldn’t be a Ninja, before someone told me I couldn’t express my anger, pain, and shame because it made me dangerous, before someone told me I had to fall in line and do things the civilized way...I had to go back to when I could still dream my own damn dreams and start from there. 

Traver's TedX talk from 2018
Traver with his arms wide open in front of the New York cityscape
Traver holding up his books

It hasn’t all been sunshine and Land Rover commercials. Yes, there have been books written, a few stints on the TEDx stage, an Acupuncture license, and now what you see on this site. But this isn’t a highlight reel or an Instagram post — this is my real life. 

Most days I still wish — I wish I was surfing more than I am, already had my black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, and love and relationships were as easy to navigate as they are to write about. I wish to get remarried and have a family of my own, maybe a small house with a white picket fence and two G-wagons parked in the driveway. I wish for a surfboard rack and a 50 cal mounted to the roof next to it, “LUVNLITE” on the license plate.

UNCIVILIZED

Life since 2018 has been a blur, a wild adventure of growing a company, building a brand with my amazing team, and of course, traveling around the world teaching men how I learned to be a better man.

Some days I feel like the luckiest man alive. Some days I want to just punch a clock, call it a day at 5:00 pm and finally turn my brain off.

But every day, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt who I am as a man and what I was put here to do with this one wild and crazy life. I hope being here helps you do that too.

While technically (semantics) I never achieved full ninja status, at some point in my life I have owned the requisite outfit, a pair of nunchucks, and a few throwing stars. Anything is possible when you’re UNcivilized.

Traver Boehm in his podcast recording studio

Welcome to my world, I’m glad you’re here.

And when you are, you’re family.

— Traver H. Boehm
Honolulu, Hawaii

Work with Traver
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