Losing a Body Part: Hank Wise

Welcome to the Nick Stanley Show. I'm your host Nick. Today's episode is a conversation about losing a body part. My guest, Hank Wise, was incredibly open and vulnerable during this conversation. And near the end, he removes his eye and reveals on camera what his face looks like without it. Some of you may remember Hank from an episode last year that was audio only for our new YouTube viewers. The catalog of audio only episodes is available wherever. The cast can be found, but this is Hank's first time on the YouTube channel. Hank is a world record setting open ocean swimmer, an NC2A champion Stanford swimmer, and the owner of Rocketfish, a swim team.

If you'd like to learn more about Hank's adventures completing 20 mile swims, slipping into the black velvet in the middle of the night with nothing on but a speedo and some lambs oil for a 10 hour crossing through shark infested waters. Check out that audio episode. And now here's my conversation with Hank on losing a body part. Welcome back to the show. Cool. So good to have you. Nice to see you Nick. Yeah, nice to be here. How are you feeling about being vulnerable today? Oh, yeah. In a public space. You know, I think it's one of those things that when I see myself being of service to others, that makes everything OK.

It's in that pretense that I feel like I'm I'm in a graceful state. And that, you know, just kind of ready to share and really be open about what's what gone down for me and different vulnerable places I've been and just where I'm at today. So yes, I'm in. OK. Let's go. All right. All right. Nice. If you can't have step into this, these type of things, you got to you got to go all the way. There's an element of fear. But like I say, like, you know, the way I put myself at a place of ease when I go when I go to the like, sometimes call it and go to the. Infinite, you know, is that is that you're trusting yourself.

You're trusting others. You're trusting the process. You go to your deepest spot. And I can relate it to open water swimming. You know, go to the black velvet swim in the middle of the night and in the ocean, which is kind of like an infinite. I mean, there is a bottom. We know there's a bottom. Right. But you know, like, like, yeah, it's it's deep. It's vast. There's animals. There's things. And it's just the wild. You know, and that's. When you really have to trust yourself and trust your teammates in this case, you and I are teaming up. We teamed up before. Yeah. So I feel really comfortable and open and ready to share.

So it's today what we're going to get into. Right. That feels to you like you're about to do a 10 hours swim into shark infested waters. You know, somewhere in that range, you know, yes, whatever. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I know what we're going to get into. Yeah. In a bit. And it's courageous from your end to to open up and talk about some things that normally. Are public knowledge or you don't do a public. This is sometimes it's like these stories come out at campfires. You're gathered in a quiet little setting and start out and the fire is going and questions come up and really open up your heart. And then it's different going on the world wide web and throwing it out there.

Yeah. And yet, and yet, I just think like there's so many people that have situations like we're going to talk about that they are either going through something or they have gone through something or they know someone that's gone through something. You know, yeah, I feel like we're dancing around the subject. We are dancing around a little bit. Yeah. I imagine though, listeners, viewers are wondering what right is this. What is this vulnerability that we're about to get into? What's this active vulnerability that's coming? It's coming. It's coming. What is it you want to share today? I have a prosthetic in my body.

And there's a lot of people that have prosthetics in their bodies. Just quick flash. My nephew. Just. Had his leg amputated. He's my hero. Yeah. He's been taking it. Well, for one, his sense of relief after he had his leg amputated from the knee down was huge. He's still in a state of relief. When I had my situation and I'll just share with you, viewers, it's my left eye. That's this eye is a glass eye. When I had my eye and nucleated, it was it was a huge relief. I'm going to keep going with my nephew here just for a moment. I'll be with my nephew here just for a second. Yeah. You know, he's dealt with this thing.

He's a funny guy anyway. His name's Scott Smith, Scott the bot. He's for work. He does computer gaming. He's always loved that. He has four kids, a successful marriage, a great wife. Like he's in it. And this this just undaunted sense of humor. Yeah, I showed you that post where he jumps. He goes into. He's amazing. Yeah, he goes into he pretends like he's getting dressed and he jumps into like no more leg, you know, like instead of an outfit, he jumps into like one one leg missing and he falls in the ground on purpose. And just to give the context, everybody for that, like there's a there's so many of those outfit change videos and it opens just like that with the little title.

It's like new outfit. And he just jumps up and then when he lands instead of having, I mean, he does change clothes, but then suddenly half of his right leg is missing. Or guess it's his left leg, his left leg is missing and he just falls to the floor. I mean, it was amazing to me because it did bring a sense of humor to the situation. I did not expect it at all because I did not know what was coming. Yeah. But it also made me very aware of his situation. And made me think about how difficult that would be to deal with that and like, damn, this dude is brave to just put this out there in the world and try to laugh about it a little bit.

Yeah, find some humor in it. So I saw him like four days after the surgery. Yeah. And he's just cruising around on crutches and he's just fine. He's in good spirits. Naturally, I'm sure there was some ebb and flow, but really what he explained to me was like, I'm his uncle, right? So he's like, he's like, Uncle Hank. Like I rolled over in bed and I didn't have this weak sort of infected leg slowing me down. I got in the car and it was the easiest time I got in the car ever. He's like, I went to the amusement park. I got in and usually I just drag this like tired, infected, stiff, sore leg with me everywhere I go.

Yeah. I got into the roller coaster. No problem buckled up and was in there in the little tight scene. Anyway, it was just like amazing, right? And so he's in there with his family and he's just loving it. And so it's like his life got a lot better by reducing his liabilities and getting rid of that infected leg. And I just, Scott, I know you'll be watching at some point. Shout out, bro. You're still my biggest hero. I'm loving it. So yeah. In my situation, just dive right in here. From a young age, I had like a drifting eye. It wasn't out of control, but it was mostly like when I'd get really tired, it would just drift a little bit.

And so then in age 14, the Jules Stein Institute up in UCLA, they tuned it up. They kind of like went in and tightened up the muscle. OK. And it was tracking a little better. My ride eye, thank goodness. And we'll talk about how grateful I am about my ride eye and a little bit. But my ride eye, thank goodness, was able to be corrected with glasses. And the left eye was the sight in that left eye was always sort of not so much there, which maybe was a product of me being born like a little prematurely, whatever, uncertain, right? Growing up, I always would use my ride eye and my left eye was just along for the ride, you know?

So when I had the detached retina losing the vision out of that eye for that temporary, like in that state, it was like, eh, it's not great, but I'm not that affected. So it wasn't like I went from from full light camera action in the left eye to zero. Right. I went from, let's say, 30% to zero. And so it's like, you know, this isn't this isn't like a super sad story. I still had vision the whole time in my ride eye. Yeah. I only lost that peripheral vision, you know, over here. And I lost some awareness vision, but I never had that crispness, you know? So right. Anyway, see, and what age was it?

About 29. This happened. Okay. 28, 29. Then it detached again. Okay. And then another surgery in which they try to put it back. I think they use the different method. And then the second surgery was a success for a little while, but then it again, fail. Yeah. And then, and then after that second surgery, and I run through that really quickly, but each surgery, there's so much involved, you know? I was going to ask so much involved. Yeah. And there's so much recovery time. And like I'm a really active person, as you mentioned, I'm a swimmer surfer water, water, water, men and stuff. So every time of these surgeries, I was out of the water for like weeks, you know?

Yeah. And just really like in a state of like, wow, I'm doing okay. I just want to like go on with my life. You know, I just want to swim again. I would like drive by the ocean on PCH and look over at the ocean sort of in these healing times and just be like, I just want to go in the water. Well, and that's what, you know, grounds you, right, heals you, resets you. So I can imagine that's really when you need it at the most. And then you couldn't go in during the healing process. Yeah. And stuff. So then once it detached that second time, I was like, okay, that's it as far as like in my mind, I was like, that's it.

Like, I'm not going to be worrying about that. I anymore. Yeah. That's all behind me now. I'm just going to have basically a non-functioning eye. I don't move all with my life. And I don't need, I don't need to tell anybody about this. And it's just going to be my little thing. And it's okay. We got a non-functioning eye, no big deal. We went from 30% vision to zero. I'm cool. Let's just go on. Yeah. And that worked for a little while up until the eye started to kind of like become sort of like as a body part that's non-functioning, the blood flow isn't there. And it's just sort of like getting a bit, I won't say septic, but it's on its way to something not good.

Yeah. It's on its way. And so it's like from the outside, you may or may not have been able to tell, but from the inside, it felt a little like sandpaper is the only way I can really describe it, kind of dry, kind of not feeling good. Yeah. And once it got to the not feeling good stage, I was like, it's time. It's time to like take another look at this. So I went to a family friend who's also an eye doctor and I'm like, Hey, here's situation. My left eye. Yeah. That second surgery didn't really, it took for a while, but it fell back off. Right. I can't see. And now it's sore and it doesn't feel good.

And so at this point, you really couldn't see what percentage wise. Zero. Oh, okay. Yeah. It was back to zero. Yeah. Yeah. And so again, fortunately, the right eye is just like home and along. Yeah. I'm just like, I can still see. I'm just uncomfortable. And I got it like sort of the dying body part in my face, you know, and yeah. I don't think and that's the same. That's the same. That's sort of the same with my nephew. He had that leg, which just was infected and not not fun anymore. I talked to the family family, I doctor friend and he's like, you know what? You need to get this looked at. This is urgent.

And here's why it's urgent. Because there's a this thing called sympathetic ophthalmia. And sympathetic ophthalmia is a situation in which the the good eye looks at the bad eye that's dying and says, Hey, you're not working anymore? Oh, I don't really want to work anymore. So the good eye takes its cue from the bad eye. Yeah. In this situation, I mean, you can look it up, sympathetic ophthalmia and it says, and it says the good eye starts to say, Hey, I'm just not going to work either. And it's a brutal story. Like it's too, it's just so brutal. Like I can't imagine it, right? You know, but anyway, so once he kind of once once my friend doctor kind of told me that, I was like, okay, note to self, let's get this looked at and let's take the next step, whatever that next step might be.

But it's not going to be another surgery because I'm not doing that. Like, okay, then the writing's kind of a little bit on the wall. Like, okay, well, when do people get glass eyes? Yeah. You know, they get glass eyes when their eye needs to be a nucleated or taken out, right? Yeah. And so, and I just, yeah, sorry. No, no, it's emotional hearing the story because it would be really painful and hard. And I just appreciate you. Well, thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And yeah, it's, it's funny, you know, it's like, yeah, I know a lot of people, and then a lot of people don't know this little facet and they don't know the, they don't know the story.

And I don't regularly share this little story. It's okay. Yeah. But it's just, it's good to share it now. And there's, there's viewers out there that are going to lose a body part or have lost a body part. Yeah. And it's all, it's, it's, it's going to be okay, viewers. You got this, you know, and when you're living proof of that. Yeah. 100%. 100. I mean, so, you know, like, like, and I'll just flash forward because we can always back up. But, you know, the flash forward is after the eye was a nucleated, I went on to do a lot of great, I mean, I don't mean to be like, great things, but you know, I went on to do like, it's okay.

They're great things. Yeah. You know, a lot of good stuff, you know, and like I have a family, I have a wife, I have a child, he's 13 years old, I set world records and swimming, you know, yeah, stuff, you know, good stuff. It's okay. The things are a big deal. It's okay to say they are. Like, yeah, I own a business, you know, right? Right. Right. It's like stuff, right? Yeah. So, you know, so just to kind of like finish up the narrative a little bit, it's just like, basically went in. Well, I mean, actually I've got to back up because the most vulnerable spot that I felt was when my friend, Dr.

told me that about the sympathetic ophthalmia, I was on the verge of panic. I bet. You know, I was like, that was like a bottom. A bit of a bottom out right there. Right. I was okay not being able to see in my left eye. Yeah. I was, I wasn't okay with the pain, but we knew we were going to deal with that. Yeah. You know, but the part that really struck me in like a really deep, deep, scary spot was like, this sympathetic ophthalmia is that real? Like it, it must be real because there's a term for it. And then I was waking up and I had like a very small apartment that I was living in. And it was great.

Don't get me wrong. I love my small apartment, low overhead. Yeah. But I would wake up in my small apartment and I'd be just like, I'd just be like, yeah, I got to get this dealt with like now. Yeah. You know, now, like now is in today now. Yeah. Just to talk about that moment for a second. Sure. Because at this point, you've lived your whole life with limited eyesight, sometimes no eyesight in one of your eyes. So you've been able to cope with that. That's all you've known. Right. But now you're hearing you might lose all of your eyesight. For sure. If this isn't dealt with. Yep. I mean, that's got to be terrifying.

It's absolutely terrifying. Yeah. I mean, I mean, like it sends you to it's, and talk about to the infinite. It sends you to like a place of utter like thinking about being blind is like talk about empathy. Like growing up, I was always fascinated by the stories of Helen Keller. Yeah. And she's awesome. Like she's a hero. Amazing. It's a big time hero. My heart still just breaks when I and loves her. Yeah. At the same time. And I think that's kind of what we're talking about. Yeah. You know, 100%. And then, you know, musicians wise, like I've always loved Stevie Wonder. Yeah. You know, Ray Charles, like I just like love those guys.

Right. I grew up with, I grew up with Stevie Wonder in my house. What a fabulous pure musician talent, you know. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, Ray Charles too, for that matter, you know. Oh, I mean, came into him a little later. But Stevie Wonder was big for me, you know. I mean, two of the greatest musicians ever. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just like I tapped into what it would be like to be blind in my scared state. And, you know, you look to those role models and you don't want to be them. But you see that others have done it before. And then, like, you know, can I get through this lifeline, you know, like questions, you know.

You flirt with those questions. And at the same time, you want to run to the answer. You want to run to the good and run to the healthy and how do I get healthy, you know. And so, run to the healthy I did, Dr. William Chen, very steady, calm, good guy. Dr. William Chen, a nuclei at the eye. Yeah. I always wanted him to put it in a jar and save it for me. He didn't do that. But I always kind of like wanted to like have it in a jar or like vinegar or something from Alda. I didn't have it on my have it on my shelf, you know. That was not an option. No. He didn't he didn't give me that option. Okay.

And then to get the actual prosthetic was a guy, Dr. Stu Foreman on Long Beach Boulevard, he took Polaroid photos of my ride eye and then and up close. And then he took forever and a day making it out of sea coral. And he color matched it perfectly. It's made out of sea coral. It's made out of sea coral. Yeah. Get it. I know. It's fascinating stuff. Yeah. And it's actually shaped like a shell and in a minute and maybe we'll even take it out and look at it or whatever to take it back to Dr. William Chen and the relief that I felt. So honestly, I know of probably everyone that's watching has had a splinter in their hand or their foot.

How good does it feel when that splinter is removed? Right. Yeah. Yeah. It feels so good, you know. And that's largely kind of what it felt like to have my eye removed. Yeah. I was in an immediate state of relief. It was not a painful thing afterwards. It was not like something I had to get used to. It was just like this infected, tired body part that had done its time with me. Yeah. And we separated from each other and I woke up the next day. Like just okay, maybe better than okay, because sympathetic ophthalmia was now off the table. Right. And I was just like, okay, I'm going to take such good care of my right eye.

Like I'm going to be a steward of my body, of my head, of my health. You know, everything forward is going to be about like eating right, hydrating, eating my greens, and taking good care of my mind, body spirit, such that my right eye will see me until I'm no longer walking around on the planet, you know, because that's my goal, right? Right. You know, for all of you that have had a detached retina, you'll know about this. When you see a bright flash in your eye, you probably had it with football, with all your soccer, you know, like if you're hit hard or hit or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that bright flash is not a good thing.

What that is, is your retina is jarred, and it's kind of like, well, and the instead of your retina processing images correctly, there's like a little moment when there's kind of like a little hole in your retina. And that can be super dramatic because it can lead to a detached retina. Right. And anytime, anytime viewers, if you ever see a flash, don't panic, but just be aware that, hey, something's irregular here and you need to like respond to that little flash. And if you see a lot of flashes, then you need to respond like immediately, you know? And like, so it was just, it's just like living in the state of one eye has been really weird because like little flashes at night weird me out because I'm always like on the lookout for am I experiencing flashes or things?

And so it's like, it's just like this alarm that we have at my house. It's like sometimes it flashes, you know? Okay. And like, then I was like, oh, that's just the alarm. You know what I mean? But it's almost like a trigger. It's like a little trigger. And now I'm desensitized down to it, you know? Yeah. But when it was first installed, I was like, oh, like, am I okay? Oh, I'm totally okay. It's just the alarm. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyway, just little things. I guess I'm in a constant state of awareness and sort of like whenever I see kids playing with sticks, I'm like, put those sticks down.

There's no playing with sticks. If they insist on playing with sticks, I'm like, okay, everything below the waist, yeah, you know? And like, I'll tell kids in the park, like below the waist, kids. I don't even know them, right? Like, we're not playing with sticks. Like, I didn't get my detached retina from messing around with sticks, you know? But it just is like, I'm just on constant vigilance for the health and safety of my right eye. Sure. Yeah. Sure. And for other people's as well. For sure. Yeah. Safety for. Well, before we take the eye out and take that step, I want to take a minute to talk about when you had the idea for this episode and this idea of the importance of being vulnerable on the internet.

And let's start with why that was important to you. We're so modern in so many ways. But in so many ways, we are just cavemen that lived like a bunch, a bunch, a bunch of years. Yeah. And now we have iPhones, you know? Like, you know what I mean? We're those same humans that need the same things throughout time. And those things are like connection to others. You know? I think that by me coming on your show with sort of like this challenge behind me, and it's really not behind me because I still got this right eye that I really got to take care of every day. You know? But with the big challenge of losing an eye behind me, it opens the door for others that are in a similar situation of losing a limb, losing an eye, losing faculties of their body in some way.

It puts them in a state of like, yeah, that guy, he did it. I can do it too. Right. And which was important to you. I just hope that others that when they're in a state of struggle with whatever they're going through, and I mean, struggle happens in so many ways, you know, losing a loved one, you know, losing losing their home to a fire or something. There's so many stories out there of challenge, you know? Yeah. And then overcoming that challenge, you know, that really like, I feel like mine's kind of minor. To be honest with you, like, I really do. Like, like, you can still see you're good. Keep going.

You know? Right. Well, it's good to put things in a bigger context. Yeah. I mean, when you were talking about losing a part of your body, I had a flashback to talking to my mother-in-law who had ovarian cancer and near the end, she passed away from it. Right. In the end, I had a conversation with her and her entire body was failing at this point, and she was just talking about how hard that was initially feeling that she was being betrayed by her body. All this to say, there are a lot of situations that what you're talking about applies to and a whole lot of people that this can be inspirational for.

I mean, obviously she didn't make it, but when she was diagnosed, she was at stage four, and it was she was just in a real bad spot for the beginning. For sure. But the overcoming was with my wife and dealing with losing her mom for her time. At a younger age than she would have otherwise passed. And that was a real struggle for her. But again, seems like humor is really important for the healing process. And putting things in a bigger context. I mean, she would often talk about how I didn't lose my mom when I was five years old. I didn't lose my mom when I was 15 years old. I got to be an adult.

She got to meet her grandkids. Putting things in that bigger context seems to really help. You know, we said we put a pin in the negative stuff that's on social media. Let's look at that just for a second. Because to me, that's why this was important to do this episode. So if we look at depression, anxiety, feelings of not having self-worth of being less than. It's been steadily trickling down, down, down, down with each generation. We actually are becoming mentally healthier and happier on a grander scale. But over the last roughly 100 years. And then between 2012 and 2014, massive uptick on those negative metrics.

Self-esteem runs basically the same way. Self-esteem, it's not a huge increase. It's just steadily ticking higher. And when I say self-esteem, I don't mean like everybody gets a participation trophy. I just mean actually feeling like you have self-worth in something to offer the world and feeling good about yourself. And you're going to go be your authentic self in the world and do the things you want to do. I mean, positive stuff that we all want for our kids. We all want for ourselves, for our friends, for our family. If we're really being evolved, we want for everyone around the world. Around 2012 to 2014, that takes a nosedive.

And it starts with the Gen Z kids. What happens in that time between 2012 and 2014? That is the time just after a massive adoption of cell phones. And the massive rise for social media. And for Gen Z kids, just to put a fine point on it, it's not just feelings of negativity. The suicide rate for young people skyrocketed after 2007. So that's after the massive cell phone adoption. The teen suicide rate nearly doubled between 2007 and 2019. And then as these older generations, because the young kids pick up social media first, right? But as it moves through the older people, we see the same stuff.

Suicide rate for those in their early 20s jumped 41%. Similar trends in depression, perhaps even more shocking, the suicide rate of 10 to 14 year olds, most of whom are in elementary and middle school, tripled overall, and nearly quadrupled for girls. Let that sink in twice as many teens were taking their own lives in 2019 than just 12 years before. And three times as many kids in fourth to ninth grade, died at their own hands. God, some dark stuff there, man. It is dark. It's really dark. Nearly 3,000 10 to 14 year olds would still be alive today, enough to fill all the seats on 20 domestic error flights.

In what years again? This is 2012 to 2019. Wow. So there's enough people to fill nine to 10 domestic error flights. For sure. If 10 planes full of young people crashed, the entire country would shut down. Big time. No plane would ever take off again until we had solved that problem. And it's not just happening in one year. It's happening year over year over year. Yeah. And somehow it's flying under the radar a bit. And so I feel like something needs to be done about it. There needs to be a shift here with either consuming less of it or a shift towards wellness on what gets put out onto social media, onto the internet.

And I thought when you said this, all of this kind of hit home with me. And I thought this is at least one little movement in the right direction. Pushing the needle just a little bit to put yourself out there. Yeah. Share your story that you normally don't with people. Yeah. And that will reach a lot of people and help make their lives a little bit better. You're so spot on. I heard another one of your like snippet snippets of your one of your five minute solo things. Yeah. And you were kind of going on about don't go off on the person in the grocery line. He's going super slow. Don't go off on the checker.

Don't go off period. Like give everyone a little grace. Give everyone a little more patience. Just be kind to your fellow man. You don't know what they're going through. If your friend doesn't answer your text immediately, just give them a little moment of grace. Yeah. Because maybe they lost their phone or maybe they're whatever it is. Maybe they're having a bad day. Just give everyone a little break. Yeah. And I mean, I definitely think that way. And yourself too. Yeah. And yourself too, right? You know? And so it's like, the four agreements, whatever. I don't know how many people are in touch with the four agreements.

But one of them is don't take anything personally. You know? And it's just like, it's not about you. It's just about give everyone a little space to just kind of do their own thing and try not to get triggered and try. You know what I'm saying? There is negativity. And now we're introducing something positive. Yeah. This is positive messaging. This is a piece of the spectrum of the internet that is worth offering to people. Because we see people on great vacations. We see people snowboarding. You name it boarding. They're doing all kinds of boarding. Yeah. We see a lot of girls and bikinis fancy this and fancy that.

And we know that like all that fancy a lot of times and all that just awesomeness that you see, that's not everybody's reality. And then it makes them feel less. And it makes people feel like they're not good enough or that they're missing out or they'll be happy when or that they need to buy something or they need to go on that special vacation and take a lot of Instagram photos or whatever. Right. You know? So it's just like what we're offering here is sort of like bread and butter for those that are in a place of like humanness. Right. You know? Like we're all going to suffer. There suffering is real.

Pushing things away is a version. And we're not going to be better by pushing things away. And we're not going to be better by craving things we don't have. Right. Right. You know? So it's like let's get grounded in what is and what is is is that we're going to lose a mother-in-law to ovarian cancer. We're going to have a nephew that loses a leg. We're going to know of somebody that has a glass eye. We're going to know somebody that loses a house in a brush fire. You know? Things are going to happen. And so it's kind of like as these things happen, like what is our level of compassion as we go forward?

You know? And like just how are we going to deal with that stuff? And we're going to deal with it just like we are now like having compassionate conversations and being real for one another and showing up, you know, connecting. Well, I agree. And I actually think part of the reason podcasts have gone on so strongly with people is that in this time as social media, the rise of social media, there's so much less in-person contact. Right. And this in-person connecting all the stuff that happens in person, that energy, that the pheromones, the really reading somebody else's face, which isn't the same on a Zoom call.

It's necessary because we are cavemen that just now have iPhones. That's right. All that to say, it's not that it needs to be all about positivity because we need to experience negative emotions. Right. And if we suppress negative emotions, we're actually also suppressing joy and gratitude. That's right. Those things are all tied together. Absolutely. But if there's too much, if there's an inundation of things that cause anxiety, cause depression, that's not healthy for the interconnected consciousness, as Donald Hoffman would say. I think that part of the reason we respond to authenticity, respond to vulnerability, is that we're really, we know on some deep level that we're lacking that in today's internet-based society.

How do we live in a state when we're looking at this thing of, oh, I want more of that? How do we deal in that environment with all the negativity you just brought up? And what's our advice to teens that are addicted to social media, or maybe it's others, not teens that are addicted to social media, or addicted to whatever, because they're trying to cover up their aversion, or they're running to that addiction, whatever it may be, to kind of like soothe themselves. Or maybe they're running to that addiction to try and be like, well, I can't get the great trip to Tahiti like I saw on the internet, but I sure can't get that whatever thing that is right here and available for consumption because that makes me feel better for 10 minutes or an hour.

So I'm just going to share with you that gratitude practice is a big one for me. And then studying stoicism has been another big one for me. You know, and then meditation and just knowing how to breathe is just, and just kind of breathing is another thing. Those are some pillars that I go to that help me through my day. The gratitude practice is so big. So big. I don't know if you're if you have a gratitude practice or I do with the with the family. Yeah. Like just going around during dinner. Right. What are you grateful for? And it might be big things and it might just be little things that happen during the day.

And it's all on the table, but just things that you're grateful for. Yes. Pick that one up from Czech Sintmihai back in the day when he was doing study on research on happiness. They found that just talking about things you're grateful for, having a gratitude practice exactly on a regular basis. That's what makes it a practice. Is huge for your well-being. Absolutely. That's a great tool. And so, you know, for so yours is a dinner. I'm kind of like first thing when my eyes open, like I'm waking up and I might be before a morning swim practice and you like gets 4.30 in the morning, the world is quiet.

And I'm about to go swim at 5.30. I usually need a full hour to like get myself going and get out on the road and get to the pool. You know, like that kind of thing. So it's like for me, it's just like three gratitudes, if not 10, you know, like three gratitudes minimum before my feet even hit the floor. Yeah. You know, then I try and hit it at some other point during the day. And then again, at like eight bedtime or dinner or whatever it is, but it's just these periodic moments of reflection of like, and I always try and keep like I try to keep them varied as much as I can because I don't want to just repeat the same old thing.

And it's just kind of like drag out that same gratitude, you know, every time, which like I am grateful for those same things all the time. But I like to like kind of have it be different. You know, like my wife this morning, she said, we do it together a lot of times. Her gratitude this morning was like, I'm grateful for how quiet it is. Yeah. And then the stoicism, it's one of the big tenants that I kind of cling to with stoicism and helps me get through my day is love what you have and don't worry about what you don't have. Yeah. And so many people would just love to have what you have. So one of the places I do it individually is I really like the hot cold practice.

Yes. And so I just go into the sauna. It's filled with steam, which I really like because you can see your breath. There's this visual element to this, to just breathing, focusing on the breath, right, meditating that way. And I'll do it in different ways. Sometimes I will meditate where I'm, I'm just trying to focus on the breath and have a clear mind. But at other times it's just watching the thoughts and nudging it a little bit towards things I'm grateful for. Right. And that's a piece of stoicism that you mentioned there to also take the time to picture the, the inverse rather than being grateful for everything you have.

Imagine not having it. I know, right. Yeah. I have a place to live. I have a car I can drive and maybe I'm not satisfied with the car that I have. Oh, it's not as cool as that G-Wagon that Tommy has up the street. Look, everybody wants a G-Wagon. The G-Wagon isn't necessarily below my hair back, but I'm sure it is an example. I know. I'm dying for that G-Wagon and I've got my old broken down Toyota and it's just, it's so depressing to look at every time I have to drive it. Sure. But if you take a moment to imagine not having it. Oh, I don't even have the broken down. No. Toyota anymore. I don't have a way to get places.

Right. That will help you appreciate. You're broken down Toyota. Maybe you remember all the adventures you've had in it and good things that have happened in there and suddenly that broken down car doesn't seem so broken down. You're just reframing it in a way that is healthier and more useful. The reframing is a key stoic principle, right? Like we've seen that and we've read about it. In the Ryan Holiday stuff, those of you that are curious to get into stoicism and good beginner book on that is the, it is 365. What is it? 365. I think it's called the Daily Stoic. The Daily Stoic. Yeah, by Ryan Holiday.

Yeah. And it's a great, it's a great book. It has reflections from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and those guys. All the big dogs. Big Teethys. All the big dogs. Yes. Yeah. And you know, it's just like you said, like building a frame around it and one, another one, William Irvine from the Wakening, Wakening Up, Waking Up app. He says, Trans Life Perspective. That sounds like a really heady thing, but it's basically like, just kind of looking at switching spots with somebody who doesn't have running water for a second. And there's a lot of people out there in the world that do not have running water.

Right. And they might have dirt floors, you know. And so like they have to carry their water. And when they get home, you know, to their little thing, it's like, there's no floor, you know, and maybe the water itself that they get isn't even clean. You know, and I know that's like some hardcore stuff to even consider, but it sure, if you can, if you can take two minutes and live in that other person's reality, I guarantee you that as you after you open your eyes and come back to your reality that you have, you'd be like, wow, I've got running water. Right. I've got clean feet on a clean floor. I've got a broken down Toyota that still rolls down the road, you know.

And like, I am so grateful for these things, you know. And it shifts your focus off of all those wants that are very surface based. And that's what Instagram is great at promoting for sure. Yeah. And anything we can do with that helps. And I think it really helps because if we can start to move away from these unnecessary wants, right, we can get down to what is it we actually really want? That might be a loving relationship. Yes. It might be being closer with your friends. Absolutely. It might be trying to start a business that's going to make the world a little bit better place somehow. And I think the real benefit from just pulling the notch down a little bit on those unnecessary wants is that you can focus the energy on the things that you actually do want.

The first two starters that you mentioned were connection to others. And like there's a lot of research on happiness. Arthur Brooks, right? Is not the Harvard guy that did the happiness lab or something like that. I'll look him up and get him in the notes as well. When they controlled for all the variables and they did generational studies of people, what they found was that connection and love, connection, love, friendship, these things are the things that really make us happy. And so it's like across time and culture, the connection to others and the feelings of connectedness, acceptance, love, friendship, those are the things that really feed the soul of humans and really make us happy.

So it's like at the end of the day, like, yeah, all the goodies that we see on Instagram, that's just like candy. You know, it's like, that's the candy. It's not the nutritional stuff. So it's like when you want the nutritional stuff, then go back to love. You know, in a word, like go back to love, friendship, connection with others. Is it time? Is it time to do this? It's time to do it. This is me taking out my eye and the reasons why is to relate to others to be vulnerable. I mean, you know, in an authentic setting and it's just like I am a prosthetic. When I take it out, it looks, it looks, my face looks different.

I'm so glad there are prosthetics because like I can go around looking normal. In the old days before prosthetics, there was like prosthetic eyes, there was eye patches, right? Before I had like the prosthetic, there was an eye patch involved. I don't prefer that look. That's not the look I'm going for. Although it's looked good in certain soap operas over time. You know, we all have these things in our life that are real for us. And I don't know that are a little unsightly. Let's be honest, like things that are hard to look at. Well, we all have imperfections. We all have imperfections, right?

And a lot of what we're talking about is there's so much perfection shown on social media. And that's why people feel less than. And I do think it's a courageous act to take something that's a imperfection and show it to others. Sure. And that's really what we're talking about doing here. Yeah. So trigger warning, I am going to take out my eye. It's not that big of a deal. And yet it is. It's a mucous membrane that is behind its pink, it's healthy. Thank goodness and stuff like that. So without any further ado, I'm just going to go ahead and do it. And thank you. Thank you everybody for watching.

Here we go. All right. My hands are clean. I washed them before. I always use clean hands. There's coming under here like so. Pop it out. This is what the eye looks like. Just show it right there. So you can see the color match between this eye and this eye real clearly. A lot of when I first got the glass eye, I thought it was going to be a round globe. Right. It's not a round globe. It has more of a shell like structure. It's kind of like kind of concave, if you will. It's relatively light. It's like kind of light to hold. It doesn't weigh a lot. It has a glossy finish, which kind of gives it that wet look.

As you can see, if you were to zoom in on this, you'd see that there's like little red sort of blood vessels running through it. Great artwork by Dr. Stu Foreman, who knows if he's still in business or whatever. That's the glass eye right there. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any questions, Nick? I want to see it up close. Yeah. On the... You just turn it around. Sure. I don't want to touch it with my hands. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Kind of fun. Yeah. I'm so glad that it exists. You know what I mean? And I look forward to my nephew, Scott Smith. I look forward to his prosthetic. He doesn't have it just yet, but he's going to get it.

So then there's that. And then one of the times when I put it in, it's not straight. Is it straight right now? It's not straight right. It's not right. So then no big deal kind of rounding around. She goes, that feels about right. It's not right. There you go. Yeah. You kind of feel it when it clicks in. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild too because now you can't even tell. Yeah. So that's kind of the way it is, you know? Yeah. So do we do it, Nick? Do we do it? I appreciate you, Nick. Great show. You did it. Thanks, man. We did it. You and I. Thank you. Yeah. Boom. Let's close it out here. I just want you to know that like for me and my family, it's been really important to eat well and hydrate, not only for athletic things, but for really like the health of my right eye.

And so I eat mostly fruits and veggies and legumes and, you know, seeds and whole grains and whole foods and, you know, all that. I'm down that whole wrap, that whole line of thinking it's good for you and it's good for sentient creatures that sometimes we eat such as like cows and sheep and pigs. Yeah. Thanks. It's just all the way around good to eat fruits and veggies. And if you want to look me up on Instagram because my Instagram, funny enough, I'm a swimmer, I'm a swim coach, but I'm not showing a lot of swimming. And the reason for that is I feel like there's a lot of people out there showing swimming and that's all good.

Mm hmm. And I have a lot to offer in swimming, but I offer that directly to my to my students and my adults that I that I coach with and swim with. But what I am dedicated to on Instagram is healthy eating a healthy lifestyle. Yeah. And so it's at Dolphin underscore boy and you'll see a lot of things about fermented foods and the microbiome and you'll see like salads and sprouts and just a lot of healthy stuff there. So and a lot of good positive hank energy. Oh yeah. We have a we have a fun time. Yeah. Come check us out on the on the cooking show that I run off at underscore at Dolphin underscore boy.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well Hank, thank you for everything today. Cool. I think we're going to have to make this a reoccurring segment every few months. We just have Hank wise on and and get wise. Well, let's go. Let's go. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity, viewers. Thank you. And let's just have let's everybody just have a great day. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. All right, man. Peace. We did it. We did it. Awesome. All right. Solid. Snapped. Snapped. There we go. Boom. All right. And I'd like to close out this episode with a quote from Brene Brown, who has done a lot of work on vulnerability.

What is the greater risk? Letting go of what people think or letting go of how I feel, what I believe and who I am. Okay, everybody. Until next time, ask questions. Don't accept the status quo and be curious.