April 23, 2024 • 50 mins
In this episode of The Nick Standlea Show, Olympic swimmer Hank Wise, a world-record holder, takes us on an emotional journey recounting his life after losing an eye and bravely adopting a prosthetic one. He candidly discusses his fears, the struggle of adjusting, and the power of resilience.
Hank's stirring narrative revolves around growing up influenced by legends like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, and how losing an eye changed his life. He shares personal experiences ranging from the initial shock to the coping mechanisms and highlights his emergence as a stronger individual.
The discussion progresses toward understanding vulnerability, providing a robust counter-narrative to the polished personas often portrayed on social media profiles. Hank emphasizes the significance of authentic human connections, resilience, self-love, and the importance of sharing struggles.
The episode paints a distressing picture of the fast-paced digital era, rife with anxieties, and the subsequent detachment from authentic emotional experiences. It offers listeners ways to navigate this new age, suggesting the study of stoicism, gratitude practices, and breathwork as potent tools for combating negativity and anxiety.
The speakers go on to discuss how these practices can foster feelings of connectedness, acceptance, friendships, and love, leading to a happier life. In a heartfelt act of vulnerability, Hank removes his prosthetic eye on camera, underlining the need to celebrate imperfections in a world driven by digital facades.
Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsor: Test Prep Gurus: https://www.prepgurus.com
@TestPrepGurus
https://www.instagram.com/testprepgurus/
EPISODE LINKS:
Hank Wise, IG: @dolphin_boy
The Four Agreements: https://www.miguelruiz.com/the-four-agreements
Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/
Epictetus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus
Marcus Aurelius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius
Flow, Csikszentmihalyi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
Gratitude Practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude
Stoicism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
Social media and wellness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_media_use_and_mental_health
William Irvine: https://www.williambirvine.com/
Waking Up app: https://www.wakingup.com/
Meditation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation
Cold plunge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_bath Authur C. Brooks: https://arthurbrooks.com/
The Happiness Lab: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cpl/faculty/leadership-and-happiness-laboratory
Scott the Bot IG: @scottthebot
Brene Brown: https://brenebrown.com/
INSTAGRAM:
- Host, Nick Standlea: @NickStandlea
- Guest, Hank Wise: @dolphin_boy
PODCAST INFO:
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheNickStandleaShow
-
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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.
(00:24):
For our new YouTube viewers, the catalog of audio-only episodes is available
wherever podcasts can be found, but this is Hank's first time on the YouTube channel.
Hank is a world-record-setting open-ocean swimmer, an NCAA 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,
(00:46):
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.
Music.
(01:07):
Hank, welcome back to the show. Cool. So good to have you, man.
Nice to see you, Nick. Yeah, nice to be here.
How are you feeling about being vulnerable today 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 okay.
(01:27):
It's in that pretense that I feel like I'm in a graceful state and that I'm
just kind of ready to share and really be open about what's gone down for me
and different vulnerable places I've been and just where I'm at today. So, yes, I'm in.
Let's go. All right. All right. Nice.
(01:48):
You can't half step into this, these type of things.
You got to go all the way. There's an element of fear, but like I say,
the way I put myself in a place of ease when I go to the, I sometimes call it go to the infinite,
is that you're trusting yourself.
You're trusting others, you're trusting the process.
(02:10):
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, 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,
(02:31):
and that's when you really have to trust yourself and trust your teammates.
In this case, you and I I are teaming up and we teamed up before.
Yeah. So I feel really comfortable and open and ready to share.
So with today, what we're going to get into, right.
That feels to you like you're about to do a 10 hour swim into shark infested waters.
(02:54):
If you somewhere in that range, you know, yes, whatever.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. I know what we're going to get into in a bit and it's courageous
from your end to, to open up and talk about some things that normally aren't,
public knowledge or you don't do in public. This is sometimes it's like these
(03:14):
stories come out at campfires.
You're gathered in a quiet little setting and it's dark out and the fire is
gone and questions come up and you really open up your heart.
And then it's different going on the worldwide 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
(03:37):
or they have gone through something or they know someone that's gone through something,
You know, I feel like we're dancing around the subject. We are dancing around a little bit.
I imagine though, listeners, viewers are wondering 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?
(04:00):
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, he's my hero.
He's been taking it. Well, for one, his, his sense of relief after he had his
leg amputated from the knee down was huge. He's still in a state of relief.
(04:23):
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 enucleated it was it
was a huge relief i'm gonna keep going with
my nephew here just for a second yeah you know he he's dealt with this thing
he's a funny guy anyway his name's scott smith scott the bot yeah he's he for
(04:48):
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, yeah,
he goes into, he pretends like he's getting dressed and he jumps into like no
(05:11):
more leg, you know, like instead of an outfit, he jumps into like one.
One leg missing and he falls on the ground on purpose.
And just to give the context text 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
(05:32):
having, I mean, he does change clothes, but then suddenly half of his right leg is missing.
I 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.
(05:54):
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 find some humor in it so i saw him like four days after the surgery yeah and.
(06:19):
He's just cruising around on crutches and he's just fine he's in good spirits
naturally i'm I'm sure there was, you know, some ebb and flow,
but really like what he explained to me was like, it was like,
and I'm his uncle. Right.
So he's like, he's like, uncle Hank, like I, I rolled over in bed and I didn't
have like this, like weak sort of infected leg slowing me down.
(06:40):
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 where I go.
Yeah. I got into the, I got into the roller coaster, no problem,
buckled up and was in there in the little tight scene. Anyway,
(07:02):
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, you know, Scott, I know you'll be watching at some point. Shout out, bro.
You're still my biggest hero. I'm loving it, you know? So, yeah.
(07:23):
In my situation, you know, 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 at age 14, kind of the Jules Stein Institute up in UCLA, they tuned it up.
They kind of like went in and tightened up the muscle.
(07:46):
And it was tracking a little better. My right eye, thank goodness,
and we'll talk about how grateful I am about my right eye in a little bit,
but my right eye, thank goodness, was able to be corrected with glasses.
And the left eye was the site 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,
(08:08):
whatever, uncertain, right?
Right. Growing up, I always would use my right 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 was like, eh, it's not great.
But I'm not that affected. So it wasn't like I went from, from full lights,
(08:32):
camera action in the left eye to zero.
I went from, let's say 30% to zero.
And so it's like, you know, this isn't, this isn't like a, some sad, super sad story.
I still had vision the whole time in my right eye. Yeah. I only lost that peripheral vision,
you know, over here and I lost some awareness vision,
(08:53):
but i never had that crispness you know so right
anyway and what and what age was it about
29 this happened okay 28 29 then it
detached again okay okay and then
another surgery in which they try to put it back i think they used a different
method and then the second surgery was a success for a little while but then
(09:14):
it again fail yeah and then and then after that second surgery and 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, waterman and stuff.
So every time of these surgeries, I was out of the water for like weeks, you know? Yeah.
(09:38):
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.
(10:02):
So I can imagine that's really when you needed it the most. Yeah.
And then you couldn't go in during the healing process and stuff.
So then once it detached that 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 eye anymore. Yeah.
That's all behind me now. I'm just going to have basically a non-functioning
(10:25):
eye and I'm going to move on 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've got a non-functioning eye. No big deal.
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 eyes started to kind of
(10:46):
like become sort of like as a body part that's non-functioning,
the blood flow isn't there anymore.
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. You know, it's on its way.
And so it's like from the outside, you may or may not have been able to tell,
(11:07):
but from the inside, it felt a little like sandpapery is the only way I can really describe it.
Kind of dry, kind of not feeling good.
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 the situation.
(11:28):
My left eye. Yeah. That second surgery didn't really, it took for a while,
but it fell back off. 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, like percentage wise?
Zero. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. It was back to zero. Yeah. Yeah.
And so again, fortunately the right eye is just like humming along and I'm just
(11:51):
like, I can still see I'm just uncomfortable.
And I got it like sort of dying body part in my face, you know, and that kind of thing.
And, and, and that's the same, that's the, that's sort of the same with my nephew.
He, he had that leg, which just was infected and not, not fun anymore.
I talked to the family, family eye doctor friend, and he's like, you know what?
(12:12):
You need to get this looked at. This is urgent.
And here's why it's urgent.
Because there's this thing called sympathetic ophthalmia.
And sympathetic ophthalmia is a situation in which the good eye looks at the
bad eye that's dying and says, hey, you're not working anymore.
(12:36):
Oh, I don't really want to work anymore. more.
So the good eye takes its cue from the bad eye 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 too, it's just so brutal.
Like I can't imagine it. Right. You know, but anyway, so once he kind of,
(12:59):
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 right 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
(13:20):
they get glass eyes when their eye needs to be enucleated or taken out right
yeah and so and i just yeah sorry no no it's it's emotional hearing the story
because it would be really painful and hard and...
I just appreciate you opening up about it. Thank you. Thank you.
(13:42):
And yeah, it's, it's funny, you know, it's, 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 and it's okay.
Like, 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.
(14:03):
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%.
(14:39):
I own a business, you know, it's like stuff. Right.
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 doctor told me that about the sympathetic ophthalmia.
(14:59):
I was I was on
the verge of panic I bet you know I was
I was like that was like a bottom
a bit of a bottom out right right there 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
(15:21):
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. Cause 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,
(15:41):
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, you know, now, like now as in today now.
And just to talk about that moment for a second, because at this point you've
lived your whole life with limited eyesight, sometimes no eyesight in one of your eyes.
(16:04):
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 if this isn't dealt with.
Yep. I mean, that's gotta be terrifying.
It's absolutely terrifying. Yeah. I mean, I mean, like it sends you to,
it's talk about to the infinite, it sends you to like a place of utter,
(16:30):
like thinking about being blind is like, talk about empathy.
Like growing up, I was always fascinated by the stories of Helen Keller and she's awesome.
Like she's a hero. Amazing. She's a big time hero.
My heart still just breaks when I, and, and loves her at the same time.
(16:50):
And I think that's kind of what we're talking about. Yeah.
A hundred percent. And then, you know, musicians wise, like I've always loved
Stevie Wonder, you know, Ray Charles, like, I just like love those guys.
You know, 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,
(17:13):
you know, came into him a little later, but Stevie Wonder was big for me, you know.
I mean, two of the greatest musicians ever. 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,
(17:39):
but you see that others have done it before. And then...
Like, you know, can I get through this life blind, you know,
like questions, you know, you flirt with those questions.
And at the same time, you, 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?
(18:02):
You know, and so run to the healthy. I did.
Dr. William Chen, very steady, calm, good guy.
Dr. William Chen enucleated 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
(18:23):
of like vinegar or something, formaldehyde, and have it on my shelf, you know?
That was not an option, though. 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 right 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.
(18:50):
It's made out of sea coral. It's made out of sea coral. No kidding.
I know. It's fascinating stuff.
Yeah. And it's actually shaped like a shell and in a minute,
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 if probably everyone that's watching has had a splinter
(19:11):
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.
(19:33):
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, like just okay.
Maybe better than okay, because sympathetic ophthalmia was now off the table.
(19:58):
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,
(20:18):
such that my right eye will will see me until I'm no longer walking around on
the planet, you know, because that's my goal, 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 something.
(20:39):
Yeah. So that bright flash is not a good thing.
What that is, is your retina is jarred and it's kind of like,
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.
(21:04):
And anytime, anytime viewers, if you ever see a flash, don't,
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
(21:27):
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 you
know or things and so it's like it's just
it's just like this this alarm that we have at my house is like like sometimes
(21:50):
it like flashes you know okay and and like then i was like oh that's just the
alarm you know but it's almost like a trigger it's 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, ooh, like, am I okay?
Oh, I'm totally okay. It's just the alarm.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But anyway, just little things.
(22:11):
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, 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 won't even know them. Right. Like we're not playing with sticks.
(22:33):
Like I didn't, 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 this,
for the health and safety of my right eye.
Sure. Yeah, sure. And for other people's as well. Yeah.
Safety first. 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.
(22:57):
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 we're so modern in so many ways but in
so many ways we are like just cavemen
(23:18):
that lived like a bunch a bunch a bunch of years
yeah and now we have iphones you know like like
you know what i mean like we're those same humans
that need the same things like like
throughout time and those things are like
connection to others you know i think that
like by me coming on your show with with sort
(23:40):
of like this this challenge behind me
and it's really not behind me because i still got this right eye that i really
gotta take care of every day you know but like 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,
(24:03):
it puts them in a state of like,
yeah, that guy, he did it. I can do it too. Right.
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, losing a loved one, losing their home to a fire or something.
(24:25):
There's so many stories out there of challenge, 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 kid. Keep going, you know?
Right. Well, it's good to put things in a bigger context.
I mean, when you were talking about losing a part of your body,
(24:48):
I had a flashback to talking to my mother-in-law who had She had ovarian cancer
and near the end, she passed away from it. Right.
Near the end, I had a conversation with her and her entire body was failing at this point.
And she was just talking about how...
(25:12):
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 she didn't make it but when she was diagnosed she was at stage four and
(25:34):
it was she was just in a real bad spot for the beginning 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's really important for the healing process and putting
(26:00):
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.
Now, we said we put a pin in the negative stuff that's on social media.
(26:22):
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.
(26:43):
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.
(27:04):
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 and 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,
(27:27):
for our friends, for our family.
And 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 mass adoption of cell phones and the massive rise for social media.
(27:52):
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?
(28:16):
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.
(28:42):
And three times as many kids in fourth to ninth grade died at their own hands. Oh my 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 air flights.
In what years again? This is 2012 to 2019.
(29:05):
Wow. So this is enough people to fill 9 to 10 domestic air 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
till we had solved that problem.
And it's not just happening in one year. It's happening year over year over year.
(29:26):
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.
Right. 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.
(29:48):
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,
share your story that you normally don't with people.
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 snippets of one of your five-minute solo things. Yeah.
(30:15):
And you were kind of going on about, don't go off on the person in the grocery
line that is 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,
(30:36):
just give them a little moment of grace, you know, because maybe they lost their
phone or maybe they're, you know, whatever it is, maybe they're having a bad day.
Just give everyone a little, little, a little break, you know?
And I mean, I definitely think that way.
And yourself too. Yeah. And yourself too. Right. You know? And so it's like, you know.
The four agreements, whatever, I don't know how many people are in touch with
(31:00):
the four agreements, but one of them is don't take anything personally.
You know, and it's just like, it's not about, 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
(31:20):
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 in bikinis fancy this and fancy that and and we We
(31:43):
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, you know, 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
(32:06):
a lot of Instagram photos or whatever.
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 in a place of like like like
humanness right you know like we're all gonna suffer like there is their suffering
is real like pushing things away is aversion and like you're not going to be
(32:30):
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, it's like, let's get grounded in what is,
and what 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.
(32:51):
We're going to, we're, 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,
It's just, how are we going to deal with that stuff? And I think we're going
to deal with it just like we are now, like having compassionate conversations
(33:13):
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 caught
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.
(33:33):
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. Yeah.
It's it's necessary because we are cavemen that just now have iPhones. That's right.
(33:53):
All that to say, it's not that it needs to be all about positivity because we
need to experience negative emotions. Right.
Right. And if we suppress negative emotions, we're actually also suppressing joy and gratitude.
Those things are all tied together. Absolutely.
But if there's too much, if there's an inundation of things that cause anxiety,
(34:15):
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
(34:37):
today's internet-based society.
How do we live in a state when we're looking at this thing like 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, you know, others, like not teens, you know, that are addicted
(35:00):
to social media or addicted to whatever, because they're trying to cover up
their aversion, or they're running to that, like addiction,
whatever it may be, to kind of like soothe themselves.
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 get that whatever thing that is right here and available for consumption,
(35:22):
because that makes me feel better for 10 minutes or an hour. Right.
So I'm just going to share with you that like gratitude practice is a big one for me.
And then studying stoicism has been another big one for me, you know,
and then, and then like like meditation and just knowing how to breathe is just,
(35:43):
and like, just kind of breathing is another thing, you know?
So it's like, those are some like pillars that I go to that helped 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.
(36:04):
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. And I...
Picked that one up from Csikszentmihalyi back in the day when he was doing study
on research on happiness.
They found that just talking about things you're grateful for,
(36:27):
having a gratitude practice.
On a regular basis. That's what makes it a practice. Yeah.
Is huge for your well-being. Absolutely. That's a great tool.
And so, you know, so yours is at dinner.
I'm, I'm kind of, I'm kind of like first thing when my, when my eyes open,
like I'm waking up and I might be before a morning swim practice and you're
(36:51):
like, it's four 30 in the morning, the world is quiet and I'm about to go swim at five 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, it's just like three gratitudes,
if not 10, you know, like three gratitudes minimum before my feet even hit the floor. Yeah.
(37:14):
You know, then I try and hit it at some other point during the day.
And then again, at like it's 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.
(37:34):
And it's just kind of like drag out that same gratitude, you know,
every time, which like, 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, we do it together a lot of
times. Her gratitude this morning was like, I'm grateful for how quiet it is.
(37:54):
Yeah. And then the stoicism, it's one of the big tenants that I kind of cling
to a stoicism and helps me get through my day is love what you have and.
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.
(38:18):
Yes. 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 on other times it's just watching the thoughts and
(38:42):
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.
(39:08):
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 doesn't necessarily blow my hair back, but as an example,
I'm dying for that G wagon. And I've got my old broken down Toyota.
(39:29):
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 Toyota anymore.
I don't have a way to get places that will help you appreciate your broken down Toyota.
Maybe you remember all the adventures you've had in it and good things that have happened in there.
(39:50):
And suddenly that broken down car doesn't seem so broken down.
You're just reframing it exactly in a way that,
is healthier and more useful. The reframing is a key Stoic principle, right?
Like we've seen that, we've read about it in the Ryan Holiday stuff.
Those of you that are curious to get into Stoicism, a good beginner book on
(40:13):
that is 365, what is it? 365.
I think it's called The Daily Stoic. The Daily Stoic, yeah, by Ryan Holiday.
And it's a great book. It has reflections from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and
those guys, all the big dogs, all the big dogs. Yeah.
And, you know, it's just like you said, like building a frame around it.
(40:34):
And one, another one, William Irvine from the Waken, Awakening,
Waking Up, Waking Up app.
He says trans life perspective.
That sounds like a really heady thing, but it's basically like,
like just kind of looking at switching Switching spots with somebody who doesn't
(40:54):
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.
(41:18):
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.
(41:40):
I've got a broken down Toyota that still rolls down the road. Yeah.
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
(42:04):
if we can start to move away from these unnecessary wants, 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
(42:26):
bit better place somehow.
And I think the real benefit from...
Just 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.
(42:49):
Arthur Brooks, right, is not the Harvard guy that did did the happiness lab or something like that.
You know, I'll look him up and get him in the notes as well.
When they controlled for all the variables and they did studies,
generational studies of people,
what they found was that like connection and love, you know,
(43:11):
connection, love, friendship, like 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
(43:31):
really, and really make us happy, you know?
And so, so it's like at the end of the day, like, like, yeah,
those, all the, all the, all the goodies that we see on Instagram,
that's just like candy, you know, it's like, that's the candy.
That's not the nutritional stuff, you know?
So it's like, when you want the nutritional stuff, then go back to love,
(43:54):
you know, in a word, like go back to love, friendship, connection with others.
Is it, is it time? Is it time to do this? It might be time to do it.
This is, this is me taking out my eye and the reasons why is to relate to others.
To be vulnerable. To be vulnerable. I mean, you know, in, in an authentic setting
and it's just like, I have a prosthetic.
(44:16):
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 the prosthetic, there was an eye patch involved.
I don't prefer that look. That's not the look I'm going for.
(44:40):
Although, it's looked good in certain soap operas over time.
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
(45:03):
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. So I, you know,
so, so trigger warning, I am going to take out my eye and it's not that big of a deal.
And yet it is, it's a mucus membrane that is behind it's pink.
(45:26):
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, and thank you. Thank you everybody for watching. And here we go.
All right. My hands are clean. I washed them before.
I always use clean hands. just come in
under here like so pop it out this
is what the eye looks like just show it
(45:47):
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 It has more of a shell-like structure.
It's kind of concave, if you will. It's relatively light.
(46:12):
It's 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 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.
(46:35):
That's the glass eye right there. Yeah. Do you have any questions,
Nick? I want to see it up close. Yeah.
You just turn it around. I don't want to touch it with my hands. Yeah.
Yeah. Very cool. Kind of, kind of fun. Yeah.
I'm so glad that they, that it exists, you know what I mean?
And I look forward to my nephew, Scott Smith. I look forward to his prosthetic.
(46:56):
He doesn't have it just yet, but he's going to get it.
So then there's that. And then a lot of times when I put it in,
it's not straight. Is it straight right now? It's not straight.
It's not right. So then no big deal. Kind of round and round she goes.
Oh, wow. That feels about right. There you go. Yeah. Kind of feel it when it clicks in.
Yeah. Yeah. It's wild too, because now you can't even tell. Yeah.
(47:21):
So that's kind of the way it is, you know? Yeah.
So did we do it, Nick? Did we do it? I appreciate you, Hank. 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 for me and my family,
(47:41):
it's been really important to eat well and hydrate, not only for athletic things,
but for really the health of my right eye.
And so I eat mostly fruits and veggies and legumes and seeds and whole grains
and whole foods and all that.
I'm down that whole line of thinking.
(48:03):
It's good for you and it's good for me.
Sentient creatures that sometimes we eat, such as like cows and sheep and pigs.
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.
(48:25):
And the reason for that is I feel like there's a lot of people out there showing
swimming and that's all good.
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, healthy lifestyle.
And so it's at dolphin underscore boy.
(48:47):
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, we, we, we have a, we have a fun time. So come check us out on the cooking
show that I run off at Dolphin underscore boy. Yeah, absolutely.
(49:11):
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 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.
(49:34):
All right, man. Peace. We did it. We did it. Awesome.
Solid snap. Snap it out. 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.
(49:57):
Okay, everybody. Until next time, ask questions. Don't accept the status quo and be curious.
Music.
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.
(00:24):
For our new YouTube viewers, the catalog of audio-only episodes is available
wherever podcasts can be found, but this is Hank's first time on the YouTube channel.
Hank is a world-record-setting open-ocean swimmer, an NCAA 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,
(00:46):
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.
Music.
(01:07):
Hank, welcome back to the show. Cool. So good to have you, man.
Nice to see you, Nick. Yeah, nice to be here.
How are you feeling about being vulnerable today 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 okay.
(01:27):
It's in that pretense that I feel like I'm in a graceful state and that I'm
just kind of ready to share and really be open about what's gone down for me
and different vulnerable places I've been and just where I'm at today. So, yes, I'm in.
Let's go. All right. All right. Nice.
(01:48):
You can't half step into this, these type of things.
You got to go all the way. There's an element of fear, but like I say,
the way I put myself in a place of ease when I go to the, I sometimes call it go to the infinite,
is that you're trusting yourself.
You're trusting others, you're trusting the process.
(02:10):
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, 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,
(02:31):
and that's when you really have to trust yourself and trust your teammates.
In this case, you and I I are teaming up and we teamed up before.
Yeah. So I feel really comfortable and open and ready to share.
So with today, what we're going to get into, right.
That feels to you like you're about to do a 10 hour swim into shark infested waters.
(02:54):
If you somewhere in that range, you know, yes, whatever.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. I know what we're going to get into in a bit and it's courageous
from your end to, to open up and talk about some things that normally aren't,
public knowledge or you don't do in public. This is sometimes it's like these
(03:14):
stories come out at campfires.
You're gathered in a quiet little setting and it's dark out and the fire is
gone and questions come up and you really open up your heart.
And then it's different going on the worldwide 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
(03:37):
or they have gone through something or they know someone that's gone through something,
You know, I feel like we're dancing around the subject. We are dancing around a little bit.
I imagine though, listeners, viewers are wondering 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?
(04:00):
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, he's my hero.
He's been taking it. Well, for one, his, his sense of relief after he had his
leg amputated from the knee down was huge. He's still in a state of relief.
(04:23):
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 enucleated it was it
was a huge relief i'm gonna keep going with
my nephew here just for a second yeah you know he he's dealt with this thing
he's a funny guy anyway his name's scott smith scott the bot yeah he's he for
(04:48):
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, yeah,
he goes into, he pretends like he's getting dressed and he jumps into like no
(05:11):
more leg, you know, like instead of an outfit, he jumps into like one.
One leg missing and he falls on the ground on purpose.
And just to give the context text 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
(05:32):
having, I mean, he does change clothes, but then suddenly half of his right leg is missing.
I 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.
(05:54):
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 find some humor in it so i saw him like four days after the surgery yeah and.
(06:19):
He's just cruising around on crutches and he's just fine he's in good spirits
naturally i'm I'm sure there was, you know, some ebb and flow,
but really like what he explained to me was like, it was like,
and I'm his uncle. Right.
So he's like, he's like, uncle Hank, like I, I rolled over in bed and I didn't
have like this, like weak sort of infected leg slowing me down.
(06:40):
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 where I go.
Yeah. I got into the, I got into the roller coaster, no problem,
buckled up and was in there in the little tight scene. Anyway,
(07:02):
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, you know, Scott, I know you'll be watching at some point. Shout out, bro.
You're still my biggest hero. I'm loving it, you know? So, yeah.
(07:23):
In my situation, you know, 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 at age 14, kind of the Jules Stein Institute up in UCLA, they tuned it up.
They kind of like went in and tightened up the muscle.
(07:46):
And it was tracking a little better. My right eye, thank goodness,
and we'll talk about how grateful I am about my right eye in a little bit,
but my right eye, thank goodness, was able to be corrected with glasses.
And the left eye was the site 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,
(08:08):
whatever, uncertain, right?
Right. Growing up, I always would use my right 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 was like, eh, it's not great.
But I'm not that affected. So it wasn't like I went from, from full lights,
(08:32):
camera action in the left eye to zero.
I went from, let's say 30% to zero.
And so it's like, you know, this isn't, this isn't like a, some sad, super sad story.
I still had vision the whole time in my right eye. Yeah. I only lost that peripheral vision,
you know, over here and I lost some awareness vision,
(08:53):
but i never had that crispness you know so right
anyway and what and what age was it about
29 this happened okay 28 29 then it
detached again okay okay and then
another surgery in which they try to put it back i think they used a different
method and then the second surgery was a success for a little while but then
(09:14):
it again fail yeah and then and then after that second surgery and 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, waterman and stuff.
So every time of these surgeries, I was out of the water for like weeks, you know? Yeah.
(09:38):
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.
(10:02):
So I can imagine that's really when you needed it the most. Yeah.
And then you couldn't go in during the healing process and stuff.
So then once it detached that 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 eye anymore. Yeah.
That's all behind me now. I'm just going to have basically a non-functioning
(10:25):
eye and I'm going to move on 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've got a non-functioning eye. No big deal.
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 eyes started to kind of
(10:46):
like become sort of like as a body part that's non-functioning,
the blood flow isn't there anymore.
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. You know, it's on its way.
And so it's like from the outside, you may or may not have been able to tell,
(11:07):
but from the inside, it felt a little like sandpapery is the only way I can really describe it.
Kind of dry, kind of not feeling good.
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 the situation.
(11:28):
My left eye. Yeah. That second surgery didn't really, it took for a while,
but it fell back off. 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, like percentage wise?
Zero. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. It was back to zero. Yeah. Yeah.
And so again, fortunately the right eye is just like humming along and I'm just
(11:51):
like, I can still see I'm just uncomfortable.
And I got it like sort of dying body part in my face, you know, and that kind of thing.
And, and, and that's the same, that's the, that's sort of the same with my nephew.
He, he had that leg, which just was infected and not, not fun anymore.
I talked to the family, family eye doctor friend, and he's like, you know what?
(12:12):
You need to get this looked at. This is urgent.
And here's why it's urgent.
Because there's this thing called sympathetic ophthalmia.
And sympathetic ophthalmia is a situation in which the good eye looks at the
bad eye that's dying and says, hey, you're not working anymore.
(12:36):
Oh, I don't really want to work anymore. more.
So the good eye takes its cue from the bad eye 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 too, it's just so brutal.
Like I can't imagine it. Right. You know, but anyway, so once he kind of,
(12:59):
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 right 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
(13:20):
they get glass eyes when their eye needs to be enucleated or taken out right
yeah and so and i just yeah sorry no no it's it's emotional hearing the story
because it would be really painful and hard and...
I just appreciate you opening up about it. Thank you. Thank you.
(13:42):
And yeah, it's, it's funny, you know, it's, 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 and it's okay.
Like, 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.
(14:03):
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%.
(14:39):
I own a business, you know, it's like stuff. Right.
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 doctor told me that about the sympathetic ophthalmia.
(14:59):
I was I was on
the verge of panic I bet you know I was
I was like that was like a bottom
a bit of a bottom out right right there 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
(15:21):
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. Cause 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,
(15:41):
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, you know, now, like now as in today now.
And just to talk about that moment for a second, because at this point you've
lived your whole life with limited eyesight, sometimes no eyesight in one of your eyes.
(16:04):
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 if this isn't dealt with.
Yep. I mean, that's gotta be terrifying.
It's absolutely terrifying. Yeah. I mean, I mean, like it sends you to,
it's talk about to the infinite, it sends you to like a place of utter,
(16:30):
like thinking about being blind is like, talk about empathy.
Like growing up, I was always fascinated by the stories of Helen Keller and she's awesome.
Like she's a hero. Amazing. She's a big time hero.
My heart still just breaks when I, and, and loves her at the same time.
(16:50):
And I think that's kind of what we're talking about. Yeah.
A hundred percent. And then, you know, musicians wise, like I've always loved
Stevie Wonder, you know, Ray Charles, like, I just like love those guys.
You know, 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,
(17:13):
you know, came into him a little later, but Stevie Wonder was big for me, you know.
I mean, two of the greatest musicians ever. 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,
(17:39):
but you see that others have done it before. And then...
Like, you know, can I get through this life blind, you know,
like questions, you know, you flirt with those questions.
And at the same time, you, 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?
(18:02):
You know, and so run to the healthy. I did.
Dr. William Chen, very steady, calm, good guy.
Dr. William Chen enucleated 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
(18:23):
of like vinegar or something, formaldehyde, and have it on my shelf, you know?
That was not an option, though. 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 right 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.
(18:50):
It's made out of sea coral. It's made out of sea coral. No kidding.
I know. It's fascinating stuff.
Yeah. And it's actually shaped like a shell and in a minute,
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 if probably everyone that's watching has had a splinter
(19:11):
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.
(19:33):
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, like just okay.
Maybe better than okay, because sympathetic ophthalmia was now off the table.
(19:58):
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,
(20:18):
such that my right eye will will see me until I'm no longer walking around on
the planet, you know, because that's my goal, 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 something.
(20:39):
Yeah. So that bright flash is not a good thing.
What that is, is your retina is jarred and it's kind of like,
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.
(21:04):
And anytime, anytime viewers, if you ever see a flash, don't,
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
(21:27):
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 you
know or things and so it's like it's just
it's just like this this alarm that we have at my house is like like sometimes
(21:50):
it like flashes you know okay and and like then i was like oh that's just the
alarm you know but it's almost like a trigger it's 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, ooh, like, am I okay?
Oh, I'm totally okay. It's just the alarm.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But anyway, just little things.
(22:11):
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, 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 won't even know them. Right. Like we're not playing with sticks.
(22:33):
Like I didn't, 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 this,
for the health and safety of my right eye.
Sure. Yeah, sure. And for other people's as well. Yeah.
Safety first. 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.
(22:57):
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 we're so modern in so many ways but in
so many ways we are like just cavemen
(23:18):
that lived like a bunch a bunch a bunch of years
yeah and now we have iphones you know like like
you know what i mean like we're those same humans
that need the same things like like
throughout time and those things are like
connection to others you know i think that
like by me coming on your show with with sort
(23:40):
of like this this challenge behind me
and it's really not behind me because i still got this right eye that i really
gotta take care of every day you know but like 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,
(24:03):
it puts them in a state of like,
yeah, that guy, he did it. I can do it too. Right.
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, losing a loved one, losing their home to a fire or something.
(24:25):
There's so many stories out there of challenge, 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 kid. Keep going, you know?
Right. Well, it's good to put things in a bigger context.
I mean, when you were talking about losing a part of your body,
(24:48):
I had a flashback to talking to my mother-in-law who had She had ovarian cancer
and near the end, she passed away from it. Right.
Near the end, I had a conversation with her and her entire body was failing at this point.
And she was just talking about how...
(25:12):
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 she didn't make it but when she was diagnosed she was at stage four and
(25:34):
it was she was just in a real bad spot for the beginning 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's really important for the healing process and putting
(26:00):
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.
Now, we said we put a pin in the negative stuff that's on social media.
(26:22):
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.
(26:43):
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.
(27:04):
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 and 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,
(27:27):
for our friends, for our family.
And 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 mass adoption of cell phones and the massive rise for social media.
(27:52):
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?
(28:16):
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.
(28:42):
And three times as many kids in fourth to ninth grade died at their own hands. Oh my 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 air flights.
In what years again? This is 2012 to 2019.
(29:05):
Wow. So this is enough people to fill 9 to 10 domestic air 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
till we had solved that problem.
And it's not just happening in one year. It's happening year over year over year.
(29:26):
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.
Right. 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.
(29:48):
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,
share your story that you normally don't with people.
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 snippets of one of your five-minute solo things. Yeah.
(30:15):
And you were kind of going on about, don't go off on the person in the grocery
line that is 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,
(30:36):
just give them a little moment of grace, you know, because maybe they lost their
phone or maybe they're, you know, whatever it is, maybe they're having a bad day.
Just give everyone a little, little, a little break, you know?
And I mean, I definitely think that way.
And yourself too. Yeah. And yourself too. Right. You know? And so it's like, you know.
The four agreements, whatever, I don't know how many people are in touch with
(31:00):
the four agreements, but one of them is don't take anything personally.
You know, and it's just like, it's not about, 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
(31:20):
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 in bikinis fancy this and fancy that and and we We
(31:43):
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, you know, 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
(32:06):
a lot of Instagram photos or whatever.
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 in a place of like like like
humanness right you know like we're all gonna suffer like there is their suffering
is real like pushing things away is aversion and like you're not going to be
(32:30):
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, it's like, let's get grounded in what is,
and what 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.
(32:51):
We're going to, we're, 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,
It's just, how are we going to deal with that stuff? And I think we're going
to deal with it just like we are now, like having compassionate conversations
(33:13):
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 caught
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.
(33:33):
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. Yeah.
It's it's necessary because we are cavemen that just now have iPhones. That's right.
(33:53):
All that to say, it's not that it needs to be all about positivity because we
need to experience negative emotions. Right.
Right. And if we suppress negative emotions, we're actually also suppressing joy and gratitude.
Those things are all tied together. Absolutely.
But if there's too much, if there's an inundation of things that cause anxiety,
(34:15):
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
(34:37):
today's internet-based society.
How do we live in a state when we're looking at this thing like 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, you know, others, like not teens, you know, that are addicted
(35:00):
to social media or addicted to whatever, because they're trying to cover up
their aversion, or they're running to that, like addiction,
whatever it may be, to kind of like soothe themselves.
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 get that whatever thing that is right here and available for consumption,
(35:22):
because that makes me feel better for 10 minutes or an hour. Right.
So I'm just going to share with you that like gratitude practice is a big one for me.
And then studying stoicism has been another big one for me, you know,
and then, and then like like meditation and just knowing how to breathe is just,
(35:43):
and like, just kind of breathing is another thing, you know?
So it's like, those are some like pillars that I go to that helped 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.
(36:04):
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. And I...
Picked that one up from Csikszentmihalyi back in the day when he was doing study
on research on happiness.
They found that just talking about things you're grateful for,
(36:27):
having a gratitude practice.
On a regular basis. That's what makes it a practice. Yeah.
Is huge for your well-being. Absolutely. That's a great tool.
And so, you know, so yours is at dinner.
I'm, I'm kind of, I'm kind of like first thing when my, when my eyes open,
like I'm waking up and I might be before a morning swim practice and you're
(36:51):
like, it's four 30 in the morning, the world is quiet and I'm about to go swim at five 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, it's just like three gratitudes,
if not 10, you know, like three gratitudes minimum before my feet even hit the floor. Yeah.
(37:14):
You know, then I try and hit it at some other point during the day.
And then again, at like it's 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.
(37:34):
And it's just kind of like drag out that same gratitude, you know,
every time, which like, 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, we do it together a lot of
times. Her gratitude this morning was like, I'm grateful for how quiet it is.
(37:54):
Yeah. And then the stoicism, it's one of the big tenants that I kind of cling
to a stoicism and helps me get through my day is love what you have and.
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.
(38:18):
Yes. 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 on other times it's just watching the thoughts and
(38:42):
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.
(39:08):
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 doesn't necessarily blow my hair back, but as an example,
I'm dying for that G wagon. And I've got my old broken down Toyota.
(39:29):
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 Toyota anymore.
I don't have a way to get places that will help you appreciate your broken down Toyota.
Maybe you remember all the adventures you've had in it and good things that have happened in there.
(39:50):
And suddenly that broken down car doesn't seem so broken down.
You're just reframing it exactly in a way that,
is healthier and more useful. The reframing is a key Stoic principle, right?
Like we've seen that, we've read about it in the Ryan Holiday stuff.
Those of you that are curious to get into Stoicism, a good beginner book on
(40:13):
that is 365, what is it? 365.
I think it's called The Daily Stoic. The Daily Stoic, yeah, by Ryan Holiday.
And it's a great book. It has reflections from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and
those guys, all the big dogs, all the big dogs. Yeah.
And, you know, it's just like you said, like building a frame around it.
(40:34):
And one, another one, William Irvine from the Waken, Awakening,
Waking Up, Waking Up app.
He says trans life perspective.
That sounds like a really heady thing, but it's basically like,
like just kind of looking at switching Switching spots with somebody who doesn't
(40:54):
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.
(41:18):
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.
(41:40):
I've got a broken down Toyota that still rolls down the road. Yeah.
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
(42:04):
if we can start to move away from these unnecessary wants, 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
(42:26):
bit better place somehow.
And I think the real benefit from...
Just 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.
(42:49):
Arthur Brooks, right, is not the Harvard guy that did did the happiness lab or something like that.
You know, I'll look him up and get him in the notes as well.
When they controlled for all the variables and they did studies,
generational studies of people,
what they found was that like connection and love, you know,
(43:11):
connection, love, friendship, like 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
(43:31):
really, and really make us happy, you know?
And so, so it's like at the end of the day, like, like, yeah,
those, all the, all the, all the goodies that we see on Instagram,
that's just like candy, you know, it's like, that's the candy.
That's not the nutritional stuff, you know?
So it's like, when you want the nutritional stuff, then go back to love,
(43:54):
you know, in a word, like go back to love, friendship, connection with others.
Is it, is it time? Is it time to do this? It might be time to do it.
This is, this is me taking out my eye and the reasons why is to relate to others.
To be vulnerable. To be vulnerable. I mean, you know, in, in an authentic setting
and it's just like, I have a prosthetic.
(44:16):
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 the prosthetic, there was an eye patch involved.
I don't prefer that look. That's not the look I'm going for.
(44:40):
Although, it's looked good in certain soap operas over time.
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
(45:03):
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. So I, you know,
so, so trigger warning, I am going to take out my eye and it's not that big of a deal.
And yet it is, it's a mucus membrane that is behind it's pink.
(45:26):
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, and thank you. Thank you everybody for watching. And here we go.
All right. My hands are clean. I washed them before.
I always use clean hands. just come in
under here like so pop it out this
is what the eye looks like just show it
(45:47):
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 It has more of a shell-like structure.
It's kind of concave, if you will. It's relatively light.
(46:12):
It's 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 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.
(46:35):
That's the glass eye right there. Yeah. Do you have any questions,
Nick? I want to see it up close. Yeah.
You just turn it around. I don't want to touch it with my hands. Yeah.
Yeah. Very cool. Kind of, kind of fun. Yeah.
I'm so glad that they, that it exists, you know what I mean?
And I look forward to my nephew, Scott Smith. I look forward to his prosthetic.
(46:56):
He doesn't have it just yet, but he's going to get it.
So then there's that. And then a lot of times when I put it in,
it's not straight. Is it straight right now? It's not straight.
It's not right. So then no big deal. Kind of round and round she goes.
Oh, wow. That feels about right. There you go. Yeah. Kind of feel it when it clicks in.
Yeah. Yeah. It's wild too, because now you can't even tell. Yeah.
(47:21):
So that's kind of the way it is, you know? Yeah.
So did we do it, Nick? Did we do it? I appreciate you, Hank. 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 for me and my family,
(47:41):
it's been really important to eat well and hydrate, not only for athletic things,
but for really the health of my right eye.
And so I eat mostly fruits and veggies and legumes and seeds and whole grains
and whole foods and all that.
I'm down that whole line of thinking.
(48:03):
It's good for you and it's good for me.
Sentient creatures that sometimes we eat, such as like cows and sheep and pigs.
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.
(48:25):
And the reason for that is I feel like there's a lot of people out there showing
swimming and that's all good.
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, healthy lifestyle.
And so it's at dolphin underscore boy.
(48:47):
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, we, we, we have a, we have a fun time. So come check us out on the cooking
show that I run off at Dolphin underscore boy. Yeah, absolutely.
(49:11):
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 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.
(49:34):
All right, man. Peace. We did it. We did it. Awesome.
Solid snap. Snap it out. 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.
(49:57):
Okay, everybody. Until next time, ask questions. Don't accept the status quo and be curious.
Music.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!