The teen suicide rate nearly doubled from 2007 to 2019 and tripled among 10 to 14 year olds

Step by step

1. A nephew's joke video showed Hank how to go public ▶5:05

   Hank says the model for sharing his story came from his nephew, Scott Smith. Scott had his leg amputated below the knee. Then he posted a joke version of the popular outfit-change video. He jumps into the frame, lands with half a leg gone, and falls to the floor on purpose. Hank calls Scott his biggest hero. Scott told him that life after surgery felt like relief. It was the easiest he had ever gotten into a car. He got onto a roller coaster with no trouble, after years of dragging a tired, infected, stiff leg. Hank says the post made him see how brave that kind of sharing is.

2. The warning that scared him more than losing the eye ▶12:20

   Hank walks through the slow version of his story. He had a drifting left eye as a child. At 14, doctors at UCLA's Jules Stein Institute tightened the muscle. At about 28 or 29, the retina detached. A second surgery held for a while and then failed. Later the eye grew sore and dry. A doctor friend then warned him about sympathetic ophthalmia. Hank explains it as the healthy eye taking its cue from the failing one and shutting down too. He says he was on the verge of panic. He reasoned it had to be real, because there was a term for it.

3. Losing the eye felt like pulling out a splinter ▶19:06

   Hank says the vision in his left eye had gone from about 30% to zero, so he was not losing much sight. He had always leaned on his right eye. When Dr. William Chen removed the left eye, Hank felt immediate relief. He compares it to the good feeling of having a splinter pulled out. He says it was not painful afterward and was not something he had to get used to. He woke up the next day better than okay, because the risk to his good eye was off the table. From then on, he says, he chose to be a steward of his right eye.

4. Why 2012 to 2014 matters ▶27:44

   In the back half, Nick and Hank turn to why honest stories matter online. Nick says feelings of depression and anxiety had been easing slowly with each generation. Self-esteem had been rising slowly too. Then, around 2012 to 2014, those measures dropped sharply, starting with Gen Z kids. Nick says that window came just after the massive adoption of cell phones and the rise of social media. Hank adds that the perfect lives people post make others feel they are not good enough or are missing out.

5. The numbers Nick reads on air ▶28:36

   Nick says the teen suicide rate nearly doubled between 2007 and 2019. Among 10 to 14 year olds, he says, it tripled overall and nearly quadrupled for girls. For people in their early 20s, the rate jumped 41%, with similar trends in depression. He makes the loss easier to picture. Nearly 3,000 10 to 14 year olds would still be alive, he says, enough to fill all the seats on 20 domestic flights. If 10 planes full of young people crashed, he says, the country would shut down. His answer is small. Putting an honest story out there is one push in the right direction.

6. Three gratitudes before his feet hit the floor ▶37:04

   Hank says the habit he never skips is gratitude, first thing in the morning. He names three gratitudes, and if not three then ten, before his feet touch the floor. Sometimes that is at 4:30 in the morning, before a 5:30 swim practice. He tries to change them each day instead of repeating the same list. He often does them with his wife. One morning, he says, she was grateful for how quiet it was. He returns to the practice later in the day and again at dinner or bedtime.

7. Love what you have, then imagine not having it ▶38:01

   Hank's stoic rule is "love what you have and don't worry about what you don't have." He and Nick pair it with a flip. Do not just feel grateful for your old broken-down car. Picture having no way to get places at all. Hank suggests Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic as a beginner book, with thoughts from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. He also credits William Irvine's idea of trading places for two minutes with someone who has no running water and dirt floors. Hank says he often does this reframing in a steam sauna, where seeing his breath helps him focus.

8. Taking out the eye on camera ▶45:16

   Hank says Dr. Stu Foreman on Long Beach Boulevard made his prosthetic from sea coral. Dr. Foreman took Polaroid photos of Hank's right eye up close to match the color. Hank says he once asked to keep his removed eye in a jar and was told no. Then, with clean hands, he takes the prosthetic out. He shows that it is not a round ball. It is shaped like a shell, light and glossy, with tiny painted blood vessels. He says he does this because people we all have flaws, and showing one is a way to help someone else.