Educator.Survivor. Guide.

Professor R.A. Hanna has been an entrepreneur since before he knew the word. At nine years old he was pushing a mower through neighborhood lawns, shining shoes on the sidewalk, and rolling a paper route before dawn — earning his own way from the very beginning. Those early years also gave him something no classroom could: the discipline, teamwork, and character of scouting. Hanna earned the rank of Eagle Scout, and the friendships forged on those trails have never broken.

“Education is a gift none can take away.”

The mentor

It was in those scouting years that he first met the person who would shape everything that followed — a man of extraordinary warmth, wisdom, and quiet moral authority. Decades later that mentorship endures: most mornings, Professor Hanna still shares coffee with his mentor, now ninety and as sharp as ever — known with great affection as “The WOF,” the Wise Old Fart. A great mentor, he learned, does not give you answers; he teaches you how to ask better questions. It is no accident that mentorship is woven into every dimension of the Intelligent Life Guide.

Hospitality, leadership, and the classroom

Drawn to hospitality — an industry built entirely on the art of serving others — he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and earned his place in some of the finest restaurants and private clubs in Los Angeles. From that foundation he built a catering operation that grew into a multi-faceted foodservice company employing more than 300 people, driven by a servant-first philosophy: exceed the expectation, every time. He brought dual MBAs in Finance and Entrepreneurship into the classroom, and something more important — a life fully lived in the disciplines he taught.

The day everything stopped

For more than thirty years he watched something accumulate in his students. They were talented, ambitious — and increasingly overwhelmed, not by coursework but by the experience of simply being alive. He began asking: what good is all of this knowledge if the person holding it is falling apart? Then came the accident: a severe traumatic brain injury, a fractured spine, and multiple internal injuries. The professor who had spent decades helping others find direction found himself without any. And in that enforced stillness, something began to clarify.

The long road back

Recovery was not a straight line. He learned viscerally what neuroscience had long established — that the breath could regulate the nervous system, that movement could change the architecture of the brain. He turned to the Stoics: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus — no longer academic figures, but guides. He worked with CBT therapists, practiced mindfulness as a survival skill, and studied polyvagal theory to find his way back to safety. Through it all, The WOF was present — coffee and counsel, morning after morning.

Building something that could help

As recovery stretched into years, Professor Hanna assembled a curriculum. A map. A system. The result is The Intelligent Life Guide: a 16-week integrative course synthesizing Stoicism, Servant Leadership, Mindfulness, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Emotional Intelligence, CBT, and Intentional Living into a single, coherent framework. Every lecture, every podcast episode, every guided meditation represents something he tested on himself first.

“Treat each and every person you meet with Dignity and Respect; work each and every day with Honesty and Integrity.”
— R.A. Hanna