The sNAKE Skid Row

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to a better place. It's Orlando, our friend Snake from Skid Row. I'm in the middle of trying to work my technological genius while we do this, but please welcome our guest for today, 1994 Ranger Mike Hartman. Mike, I want to get into a whole bunch of stuff of why you're here, but first of all, good morning and thanks for joining us.

Yeah, good morning. How are you?

We're doing great. I have a quick question for you.

Anything, anything.

How do you go? Just. Well, you go from. You're born in Detroit. Right. Then you go to Ontario for junior hockey. Correct?

Right.

And then you're. You stay in Toronto in Ontario for. I guess it would be the. Is it the ahl. Were you in?

Well, that was the ohl.

That's right, yeah. Ontario Hockey League. And then you get drafted by Buffalo.

Right.

And then from Buffalo you go to Winnipeg.

Right.

How do you. How did you see any sunshine ever?

Well, first of all, first of all, I was in Detroit and I'm a fan of yours, so I'm glad to.

Be on your show.

I'm a fan of yours and I lived in Detroit. I'm a big. I'm into. We're not going to get too much into it. Cause I know, but the Bob Seeger, he didn't live too far from me.

Oh, wow. I love Bob Seger.

Huge fan.

Had an influence on me, my songwriting, for sure.

Yeah.

But so what happened was I grew up in Detroit and loved the game of hockey and baseball. I was really a big baseball fan at 9 years old, in fact. Are you in New York? Are you from New York there? Is that right?

I'm from New Jersey, but I'm in Long island right now.

Long Island. Okay. So I went to my first. I went to a game as a kid and it was a rain delay and I ran down towards the dugout and they were playing Pepper. You know that game? They were playing Pepper. And I was hanging over and I was watching the Detroit Tigers played the New York Yankees and one of the players gave me a ball. I have that ball today in my safe with all the signatures on it.

That's incredible.

Yeah, yeah. So I have that ball and So I started for the love of sports. And then my uncle, who. We grew up in a blue, blue collar town of Oak park. My uncle worked for the post office and we would go to Tiger games and Red Wing games in the Tiger Stadium in the Olympia. And we used to scalp tickets because he couldn't afford to get seats. He said, we're going to come in maybe during the first period or sometime. And then I just fell in love with the game. And I just told my parents my dream is to play one game in the NHL. My mother says, stick to school. My father says, stick to school.

I know the feeling. I know the feeling.

And then my father said, well, if you keep thinking the sports way, and I'm not making fun of this, but he says, if you keep thinking the sports way, you're going to go to occ. It's a school in Michigan, only Chance College. So I ended up taking it serious. I ended up making it. Went to Canada at a young age, had some scholarships, many scholarships to play Division 1 Michigan, Michigan State, even Harvard talked to me. But I would tell my kids I was in the top three of my class. ABCC student. So I was.

Don't say that too loud. I don't want my kids to hear that.

No.

So I was going to go to Michigan State and then Gus Bedali, who represented Wayne Gretzky, Mariel Lemieux, Dale Howard. Chuck. And the late Dale Howard.

Chuck.

I played with him.

Wow.

Took me out. He saw me play. And he says, you had the potential of being drafted in the first three rounds. And I was at that time, 16. The draft's at 18. It didn't quite work out like that. But I ended up staying in Canada, lost my college eligibility, went back to school to get my degree. I made a promise to my mother and my grandma, mother and my father that, hey, let me go to Canada. I'll go to school. And then from there I just went to, you know, was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres my second year, because the first year I wasn't drafted and I was done. I was going to get a job in Detroit, Motor City, you know, music town.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

So that's Mike.

Did you ever feel. While you were struggling like that, did you ever feel depression kick in or anxiety because you had these dreams and it didn't start right away for you?

Well, I did. I learned a lot because I started. You start seeing your friends and people, you know, get drafted, and it's like, boy, I put all my eggs in one basket and that basket broke and everything what you think is bad is not really bad. Uh, but I thought, yeah, my. My days were done in hockey, and so did my father. And I was. I didn't like where I was in Belleville. It wasn't a good situation. I wasn't really. It just didn't work out without saying anything bad about anybody. And I was thinking about quitting, and I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I did not quit. So I did. I did suffer frustration, but. But I don't want to keep blabbing here. I feel like I'm talking a lot.

People don't.

That's why you're here.

Yeah, man. Well, the.

The one thing is that there's a gentleman named Jimmy devilano in Detroit. He coached the Detroit Red Wings.

I'm sorry.

He's the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings. Nick Palano was a coach, and I wasn't drafted, but he called me just after the draft, and he says, mike, can you come down to Joe Louis Arena? And I said, man, I didn't get drafted, but the Red Wings want me. And I told my mother and father, I rushed down to Detroit, that Joe Louis. Serena had lunch. He said, do you know why I brought you here today? I said, to get a tryout. He goes, no, the opposite. He goes, here, you don't do enough things well. You're not the biggest guy. You're not the fastest guy. You need to play smarter. You're going out there and making hits. You're going out of your way to make a hit. You're fighting big guys for no reason. But if you follow my plan without getting to the whole thing, I. If you follow my exact plan when you're 20 years old, because that's the rules, because of development rules, I'll give you a trial. To Detroit Red Wings. I want to give him a hug. That day, I went for a run. I listened to someone helping me. That's why I think it's important with everything you do. I know it's on a different level, but helping people is so important, and he helped me and gave me a plan. The Detroit Red Wings training program. Follow. Watch this player. I want you to watch Lane Lambert, who actually almost broke my jaw in a fight, but later on, I'm going to watch them. But it turned out that I really learned that having mentors and good people in your life. And Snake, it's an honor to be here with you today, but you're with a good man in Orlando. I've known him for Many years.

Thank you, man.

You're very kind.

That was actually my question. I wanted to know that in that instance where you're thinking like, this is the end of my career, or I have to think, find something else to.

Do, whether it's, you know, working at a gas station or whatever, I mean, you're, you're, you're almost in desperation mode. If you're not, you're. You're close to it. And so I was curious to know if you had someone in your life that was able to give you not only a vote of confidence, but a direction of how to get past this dark period of your life.

Well, thank goodness that I had parents that would say, listen, no matter what happens, I'm always there for you, and whatever happens in your life, things will work out. I grew up in Detroit. They wanted to compensate our cars in our house when we were like, 14, 13. So I grew up on both sides of the track. Not a bad area. I mean, I grew up in a nice area, Able Park. There are areas close to eight Mile where my grandmother grew up was a little tougher, but I grew up on seeing that. Then I watched my father build a humongous business. So I've seen both sides of it, but they've always supported me in everything I did. And my father says, listen, you know, if it doesn't work here, something will work. But you never. You keep your head up. They used to say, keep your head down. But in hockey, we keep our head up and we always try to move full speed ahead. And the magic word, I've been saying it for years, and people laugh, but you just let the chips fall where they may and it works out. That's what I tell my kids to this day. It will work out.

And it's.

I can only imagine. I know, because what you guys do, I'm sure you're going to get more into that. It's. Sometimes words are easy just to say, boy, it's going to work out. But it doesn't always work out the way we plan it.

So I'm curious to know how. I mean, you're a nice guy. You're a very nice guy.

I say this all the time.

How does a guy such as yourself, who's so nice, lead his team in penalty minutes every year?

Well, I wasn't. I was too small to be a goon. They had me listed at 6:1. I'm not 6:1. I'm under. I'm just about 6 foot. And what I've learned, though, is I used to watch certain players. And just by coincidence, you can call it coincident fate, but Danny Gere was a favorite player of mine and he wore number 18 for the Detroit Red Wings. But he also got. He also played for Buffalo. So I watched everything he did as a small guy. When he got on the ice, he flew through the gate, he was prepared to play. That's all mindset. That's what we do, right? Mindset stuff. I watched how he carried himself. He was the captain and then he was my announcer in Buffalo. And then after being the announcer for the Sabres for years, he got a job with the Tampa Bay Lightning as the announcers. And he's the one that told Phil Esposito to take me third pick overall in the expansion draft. And I don't even know if I've really thanked him. I think I should. I'll probably send this to him. But he was a hero of mine ever since I met him. I met him on an airplane at 15 years old. I was playing for Little Caesars, I was playing for Little Caesars hockey team and I met him and he was a hero of mine. So my father used to say, watch what he does. And he could play and fight. But I didn't like to fight. I did it because I said, you know what? I'm not going to go out of my way and hit Wayne Gretzky, but I'm not afraid to mix it up and not ever try to go hurt anybody, but maybe just get in his way a little bit. And I remember, I held. And what happens is the big boys are going to come and I could even tell you a funny story around that if you ever want to hear a funny story. But the big guys, well, the big guys used to say to me, mike, are you going to fight like a man or are you going to hold on without making a long. So I was in LA. I was in LA in the form, and Marty McSorley walks by, who was one of the toughest guys in hockey in chain. And Marty McSorley played for Belleville Bulls in the OHL. The same place where I started.

Yeah, I was gonna say, you played there as well, right?

Yeah, but he was there before me. And I remember I walked by, I said, good morning. We were playing the Kings that night. And then I walked by Jay Miller, who was a heavy heavyweight. I used to fight him or hold on to him, any way you want.

To look at it in Boston.

So I walked by and I said, good morning, Jay. And I don't swear on my show but he said, go F yourself. So I said, I said, I said, okay. And I keep walking a yell. So I thought he was going to be nice. Hey, Mike. I turn around, he looks, he goes, hey, Mike. And I turn around, I go, yeah. He goes, are you going to fight or hold on tonight? I said, I'm going to hold on. He goes, that's what I thought.

Bob Probert and you didn't die.

So I think just gonna say that.

So you're like the toughest guy I know. Just for that alone, I didn't look.

At myself that way. I mean, I played on the fourth line, but I played a lot. Not for the Rangers, but mostly in Buffalo. Like, played a lot. Like, I scored 11 goals my best year, 21 points in 60 games. And Bob Probert knocked me out for 10 games when I was in Buffalo. And then I sprained my ankle for 10 games and. Or got a couple injuries that year. Then injuries piled up over the years. But I would fight anybody. I don't care. And I used to box. I trained in the summer. I fought James Toney as a sparring guy a couple times. Really? He was working on defense, so I wasn't afraid to say, hey, you know what? I will go punch for punch if I can. And I would do anything for my teammates, to help my teammates or help my team. But they didn't look at me as a heavyweight. We had Kevin McGuire and Larry Playfair. I was a guy that had a stir it up, play physical, play tough, and that's what they wanted me to do as.

So you spent quite a while in the NHL? I think 10 or 11 years, correct?

Nine years. Yeah, nine years.

Okay. So I'm presuming that you learned an awful lot of lessons throughout all your traveling as well, playing with the different teams and. And also in the different leagues from such a young age. Did that have a direct effect on what led you to your post NHL career? Like being a performance coach, I want to say. I would say life coach, I guess.

Yeah.

Well, I've learned from really good people. Like, you're in Long island and I know you might be a Ranger or Islander fan. It doesn't matter. Ranger. But my roommate was Clark Gillies.

Oh.

And it was Mr. Gillies. I called him the Sleeping Bear. The only thing he said to me is, please don't talk in your sleep. Even though we have separate rooms in the hotel, they have like, almost like a little suite sometimes. Whatever you do, please don't talk in your sleep. I said, no problem. But in one time, I remember I was. I went to the bathroom and his Stanley. I was 19 years old playing with Clark Dailies, and his Stanley cup ring was on the. On the counter, and I was afraid to touch it if it would go down the drain or go in the toilet or something. That's how so. But they were really good people. They would take me under their win. And I wrote a little book and it's on my website. I'm not gonna promote my stuff, but I wrote a book.

I saw it.

Yeah.

And I wore number nine for the Oak Park Islanders because of Clark Gillies when I was like 11 years old. And I played with Gilbert Perrault. He was in his 17th year when I was 19, so I was two years old and I played on his line and played with these guys. Billy Height guys, Lindy Ruff, all of these. We had a very old team in Buffalo. Older for then.

Lindy was your coach for a while too, right?

No, no, no, he was a player. I always played with him.

Okay.

Played a bunch of years. Mike Ramsey from the 80 Olympic team. And I get there the first day.

And I watched the.

I was 13 years old, I watched 80 Olympics, and I get to Buffalo, and the first thing is Mike Ramsey sees me at the rink. He goes, you want to come for lunch with me? And I said, sure, yeah. And I was like, man. And I had to, like, say, boy, I'm not going to let this slip by. So I had some.

They were just.

But they were. People look at these athletes as on a pedestal, but they're really good people. And I would never say names, but on all the teams I played and I could think of one guy I didn't like. And just.

It's really interesting that you. I think, you know, in all my experiences, like, I. For me, personally, I've been touring the world since 1989, right. So it's 32 years. And. Well, I guess we can't count last year or part of this year because we've all been, you know, going through the same thing due to pandemic. But I've toured with so many different bands and met so many different musicians and. And people in. In. On the business side of things, management executives at record labels and stuff. And I gotta say that, by and large, most of the people that you would might suspect are, you know, wouldn't be the nicest people or the most giving people are actually the ones that really do know how to, quote, unquote, pay it forward. And I've had so many great mentors in my career. And it's such a gift because it's certainly those lessons that I learned and chose to hold on to from a very early age, either consciously or subconsciously, is what has guided me to this place where I am today. And I would imagine that, you know, through everything that you've gone through, that certainly has stuck with you. At least it seems it has. And that whole ideal of paying it forward, the way you mentor, obviously you were given that gift at a very young age and you retained it, which is the most amazing thing, because as kids, we're all over the place, right? You know, or like, we're looking at something and concentrating something for 10 seconds. It's like, oh, a fly just went by. Oh, look, a flower. You know, it's like it's. There's this thing that. That distracts us. We have a constant distractions going on as children. So the fact that you were able to be cognizant of the lessons that you were being gifted with, it's really, really commendable.

Well, thank you for that. And I'm mesmerized, And I'm not. I mesmerized by all the, you know, the records behind you and what you've.

Done in your life.

So my father, he would always say, listen, you play the game and always prepare for after. Because you might play one game, you might have a cup of coffee, you might have a pot of coffee, as one of our players used to say, Glenn Healy and the greatest guy. He's the funniest guy.

Oh, man.

So we talked about that. We used to have a lot of talks, and that was great. Like the Eddie Olchucks and Nick Kypriosas, even the Phil Bourkes when he was with us, the Glen Healys, the Douglas. These people were close because in New York, we were called the Black Aces. So I've learned. We all learn from each other. Like Eddie Oldchuck. He can meet one of my friends and he'll remember their name two years later.

That's incredible. That's a gift.

You know, we used to get warnings all the time when we do interviews. Hey, this is not a really nice guy, so be careful when you talk to him. This guy's gonna chew your head off if you bring this up. 99% of the time, everybody I've ever been warned about has become an ally, a friend, a mentor. The point that Snake and I always make every time we do these things is that you really never know what somebody's going through. And perception's Tough. And here we are talking with a guy that led his team in penalty minutes in the NHL for years. But the second we say, hey, Mike, we're talking about mental health. And by the way, this is not only gonna be on all of 943 the Shark social media and on the air, but also Mike is gonna air this on the Mike Hartman show as well. Because Mike, years of coaching is also getting bigger than mental health. And Mike, for everything you've ever done, when you called me the other day and said, I'm really starting to do more for mental health, what was it specifically that made you start to realize this is what I want to get into? Because you've always helped.

I have. But I'm really starting to learn more because the people, some of my peers, people that I played with, people I know, people I don't know well, like Joe Murphy is living in the. In the woods in Ontario, in Canada. And he was a first overall pick, multi, multi millionaire. Not to bring up money, but he's struggling and he doesn't want help. In fact, there's a lot of stories about him that people are trying to help him, like the Adam Graves and guys that knew him or guys that didn't even know him, Glenn Healey, because he works with the players association. So there's a lot of people that have done that I've known, people that have taken their lives. And for me, I'm starting to learn more and more about this that I have decided to donate a portion of my earnings from my course back to a mental health association.

Wow, that's amazing.

10%.

Yeah.

I'm just doing that because. Not because for any other reason except how can I help? I mean, I'm such a small thing and I'm learning more and more about it, and there's probably people that you might work with, people you see every day that suffering. And I've watched so many people go through so many things, and it's sad. We're all unique, we're all people. And at the end of the day, it's like, what can we do to help? And you guys are doing a fantastic job. And I'm just trying to do my part as well.

Well, I think that's what we're all trying to do our part or attempting to do our part. One of the things that's interesting and I've seen it, and I saw it in myself for years, for decades, and I see it in a lot of people in the entertainment business who've even had just a small modicum of success. Inherently, there's a pride factor involved that won't. We won't allow ourselves to enter into this area of perceived weakness because that's. The stigma that's attached to mental illness is that you're weak. Like, just go and deal with it and take care of it has been like, that's been the prescription for 50, 60 years. Like, we're supposed to be able. The brain is the most misunderstood organ in our body, and yet somehow we're supposed to inherently know how to fix it, which is the biggest misconception and a stigma that gets attached to mental health and mental illness. So when I hear these stories like that, it reminds me of myself for taking so long just to speak it out, because the fear is. You speak it and then it's real.

Then it's.

It's in the universe and it's real. And then you're battling your pride. At least I was. And then. So you tell a story like that that's got pride written all over it to me. And if there was just some way for, like, again, it took me 20 some years before I could get rid of that pride, speak out about it vocally, and then realize, okay, this is really happening to me. Like, this isn't happening to a third person because I bottled all this stuff down somewhere near my gallbladder for 40 years. And now it's real. And now I have to face it. And thankfully, we're getting more and more educated on solutions. There's so many more resources now than there were before, but having a dialogue about it, to remove the stigma, to get the medical community to have more engagement and research and development, getting more funding, because again, it's the most misunderstood organ in our body. And somehow for so long, we were thought of as a society that we were able to fix this on ourselves, on our own. Go in a corner and take care of it.

Yeah, Just deal with it.

Because people were scared of it. They scared of the unknown. And so. And we were raised in a culture.

I was.

And Orlando and I talk about this all the time. That our parents were like, you know, that's something that you don't talk about in the house.

No one wants.

And I've said this a thousand times, no one wants to hear about crazy Uncle Snake. You know, like, it's. People get scared. It's the way it was depicted in television and movies. You know, you're in a straight jacket and you're in a padded room, and it's like, that's the solution.

Right.

You know, You're a freak. Go away.

Yeah, well, I could tell you in 19, I. My, my hockey career started going a different way. I've had some really serious injuries, like two stomach surgeries. And the Avalanche took a chance on me and signed me to a really nice contract in 97, 96. And I couldn't play. Then I got there and I played a little bit. They tried to send me to Hershey, to rehab. I was a captain, we won the Calder cup, played some games and I said, I have to retire and I'll tell you where I'm going with this. And then I said, okay, where am.

I going to go?

My ex wife at the time didn't like Detroit and I said, well, let's go to Buffalo. I don't want to go to Buffalo, but I have she want to go to Charlotte. So I get to Charlotte and the. They were the Rangers third farm team then. And the coach called me and says, would you like to be a player coach? Play home games, we'll play your mortgage. I said, I don't need that because now we'd love to have you. I said, why not? I played as much as I could like a bunch of games and they wanted me to be a player coach. Well, I was. And I just, all I did was I felt like I was a therapist. And I got a call one night from a kid without saying his name, and he says, hey, Mike, I hate my life. So I didn't know what to do back then. Remember, I'm still older. I'm a 35 year old hockey player, which is old for these kids. They're all 20. And my kids age. My daughter's 27, my son's 23. They were younger than my kids, some of them. And the one kid says, I want to kill myself. I said, oh my gosh. I said, please. Like he says, I'm in the bathtub right now and you could hear the bubbles. And he made that.

I go, I go, man, I got to come see you. And actually some of the players went to go check on him. And the next day I told the coach, now the coach was a really good guy. He was an old school guy. I said, we have an issue here. He says, well, he's got to top it out because we didn't know back then. I go, no, no, this is real. I said, what am I going to do? I said, these kids are coming to me. Another kid wasn't. You hear everybody, the lower the minor leagues, you go, I realized and I did it. Sometimes I look back. And I said, what did I do? The inevitable is to quit early. And I wanted to.

I thought I was going to be a coach.

And I decided I didn't want to do that. But a lot of the reason was because I thought I was the babysitter that was being paid a little bit of money to help out these kids. And it really took me, and I took him under my wing. And one kid didn't even know how to get insurance, and he had, because he was so depressed, he wouldn't leave the house. I said, we got to get insurance for your car. You're Canadian. Driving around with no insurance. And he said, I'd rather kill myself. You know, this NHL team didn't give me a chance. They brought me here. And you don't take it serious when somebody says that. But, man, I've seen a lot of stuff with some people, and I just think back on it and, man, I couldn't even imagine. My hands are tight. I'm not a therapist to do that, but I started mentoring these people early. Then I started taking. I studied. I got involved with the coaching business and studying behaviors and everything else, and I made it part of my life to pay it forward. But we can. Sometimes the only thing you do is give a hug and love people. And you said it earlier, like grown men, you see them crying. It's like, wow, is there something wrong with him?

No.

It's okay to cry.

Yeah, I've done a lot of it.

Yeah, it's okay. So, yeah, I didn't want to go off on a tangent, but.

No, that's not a tangent. That's exactly. You know, that's the purpose of this conversation is. Is to have a conversation about those situations. Because, you know, this is. 96, 97 is not very long ago. It just goes to show you how ill equipped we are or were as a society. I mean, thankfully, like I said, it's getting better. I have hope. There's a lot more people who have prominent platforms that are getting involved and doing great work to educate and to offer resources, like real resources, you know, not just go ahead.

I said 96, 97. That's when I was graduating high school. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Although Mike, when You said Gabby's 27, his daughter was my intern, made me feel really old.

So she was good on your show. My daughter was.

She was amazing. But you say 96, 97. I take nothing away from my parents. My mom encouraged me to be in radio. She encouraged me to do A lot. And this is not a knock against her, but when I was going through stuff, then it was. And this is a woman that's encouraged.

Me my whole life.

But with this particular issue is. Knock it off, Brian. You have nothing to be upset about. And you don't. You don't think about it. But that's why hearing a guy like Mike, who's known to be such a tough guy, talking about men crying is so important right now. Because we were conditioned to always be considered weak.

Yeah, that's. The whole thing is breaking down that barrier, or the stigma is the word that I always tend to use because I feel that's what it really is. It's a stigma that's been attached to something for, you know, half a century or longer than a half a century, and that's a tough thing to get rid of. And again, we're just recently finally starting to take this seriously as a real illness, you know, much as addiction is and things of that nature. And finally, you know, people are. The medical community is starting to recognize that now we need more insurance companies to come to the table as well, because these people, we. I shouldn't say these people, we, myself included, need treatment. And it's. You know what?

Therapy and.

Psychologists and psychiatrists are expensive.

But they offer great, great help.

And just as a neurosurgeon is important for operating on the brain, so are psychiatrists and psychologists. In order to change the certain patterns.

That are going on within your brain.

Brains. Knee treatment, too.

They sure do. And especially there's players that. I mean, I don't want to get into the deep details, but just here in North. In South Carolina, which is really just 10 minutes over from the border from Charlotte, I think it was in Fort Mill or Rock Hill, South Carolina, 10 minutes. A football player. I mean, just a few. It was like three weeks ago. I don't. I'm sure you heard about it. I mean, former football player, you know, killed the family and they said he had CTE and different things going on. People have to take that serious. Like, if you bang your head, that is a serious thing even once. And, you know, so I look at it like I look at myself, and I am very fortunate that I could live a life of joy. And I try to be as healthy as I can, but I have friends that have taken punches. And I know football players that are really struggling everyday people. I mean, stars like yourself, you know, being in a big band and, you know, even Orlando, you're still a star. Orlando, one of the top radio Guys.

In New York, in my house I'm a star.

Listen, that's more than I am in my house.

But so it's, you know, sometimes we're all, like I said, we're all unique and people think it's funny. I've never spanked my kids. And I come, my father's from the old school, but I came from different. I always want to listen. And my son's on the six year plan and somebody says, well, what are you going to do about it? I said, do what about it? He had a situation where the first year in college where his roommate got killed on a motorcycle. And my son and I don't want to get in this whole person. He felt really bad about it. Like he felt. I said chase. And it really affected him. But thank goodness he's doing great. He's one of the best kids in the world and both my kids are amazing. But hey, Chase, it could take you six years, seven years. All I want you to do is do your best and make sure you value what you do in your life and you're given 100%, you're doing what you can. And if you ever need to talk to somebody, we'll find somebody right away for you to talk to. Because sometimes we don't know our own kids. Sometimes you think you see your kids and they look happy and you don't really know what's going on in the inside. And it's tough. Thank goodness my son is on the right track and he was. But that affected him and people say, well, is that an excuse? I don't know. It's not really an excuse. I'm sure he could have done better. I don't think use that. But it doesn't matter. He's on the six year plan. He's doing fantastic now. But you need to talk to somebody about that. And people just have to understand that, that we're, you know, that help is so important. That's why I love what the both of you are doing.

I found I had, that's a. I'm glad he's doing so well. That's awesome. I had an interesting situation with my kids and my wife and myself. I was about three years ago, two, three years ago. Mentally, health wise, I was fine for years and years and years. Smooth sailing. Everything was good. Actually. I had been off. I had been weaned off my medication for about three years and things were going smoothly and without warning. We were traveling on the west coast and I felt something strange. I hadn't felt in a really long time. Like this anxiety and panic starting to swell inside me. I didn't felt this in forever. So I was like, guys, it's nothing, I'm fine. Cut to. I have a massive breakdown in the airport.

In.

It was either Phoenix or Las Vegas. But long story short, I was, we were in the middle of doing shows, I had to get on a plane and get home and get help. And I was in a bad way. I mean, it was a full on fetal position underneath the table hidden in the airport. And my, I was on the phone, my wife, she was able to contact one of my band members who was able to come and find me and basically get me on that flight. And I'm a wreck. And I have. This is out of nowhere, like 24 hours before, I was fine.

Wow.

So that part of, part of the problem is, is you don't know where this comes from. It just rears its ugly head and you're like, oh my, how do you fight that? You know? So the point that I'm, I want to get to is that when I came home, my wife and I talked. We felt it was really important to talk to the kids about it. And kids at the time were 12, 13 years old. So I explained to them my situation, my. Some of my history and what had just happened. And they asked a really interesting question, which I was, I was really happy that they asked because it showed me that they were thinking about this. They go, is it contagious? And I was like, what an interesting question. So they were treating this like they weren't indoctrinated into a false way of viewing this. They were thinking of this as a real illness, as a disease.

Exactly.

And so when they said that, I was really thankful because I thought that was a really good indication of good. They haven't been, haven't been shown the old ways of thinking about this, you know, from when I was growing up and when we were all growing up and so we had a great conversation about it, they came to understand it a little bit, you know, more. And we talk about it every once in a while, kind of like check up and stuff like that. And even, you know, the other day I'm sitting at the dinner table. We have a family dinner pretty much every night. And a couple of the people scattered. My wife and the kids, godfather and my son. And it's just my, my daughter and myself at the table. And I just was having a moment where I was staring off and apparently I was staring off for a little while. And she goes, she calls Me. Snakey. She was snakey. Are you okay? And, like, I knew. I could tell by a tone of her voice, she was concerned about whether I was having a moment, you know, with my. With my depression. And I was so thankful for that because it was like, it's not only is she cognizant of it, but she's gracious enough to speak about it.

Want to help?

Yeah. I was like, okay, we're doing okay here. You know, like, you know, I knew.

That this one would fly fast, and 40 minutes went faster than a blink of an eye. But before we wrap this up, I mentioned that this is also going to be on the Mike Hartman Show. Mike, I really want you to talk about where we could find more of you and what you're doing with Think Tank and things like that, because it's really cool.

Well, this, to me, was very special.

Today because I am getting more into mental health and I am learning about it, reading about it, understanding about it. So the Think Tank was something that I came up with where I just, like this, we just talk. We just talk through things. And I do these short little podcast shows called the Mike Hartman show, and then my website, Hartman Academy, where I am going to donate. I have a magazine, and it is a health magazine. And Snake, I'm going to get both of you one on me. I just need your information after, and I want you to have it. My girlfriend is a dietitian. Her name is Cheryl Buckley. She's into the holistic, and she does the mind, body, and a lot of it is the mind. And she grew up on the tougher side of things in Buffalo, and she's so appreciative, and all she wants to do is help and give back. And she has like a cherylbuckley.com but I'm doing this magazine with her because she says, you know what? She was in corporate America for a long time and did very well. She goes, my passion, and she's got these degrees in nutrition, and my passion is helping people. And there's a lot of people out there that need help. And mental health just starts with also your body and your mind and taking and fueling your body properly and taking care of yourself.

Oh, sleep is such a huge factor.

You know, it's so true that you said that. We just did an episode on sleep. You need sleep. I don't feel good. Like, I'm up and down at night sometimes I have great sleep. I always said, if I know my kids are okay and my family's good, I'm doing Well, I think I personally take on so much stuff like I'm sure you guys do. But yeah, the Mike Hartman show is that. Thank you for talking about it and this is really a pleasure with both of you guys. I think this is great.

Pleasure is all ours, man. Thank you so much for taking the time and being a part of the discussion and being a part of helpful in getting to the crux of what this disease and these illnesses are.

I'm going to loop you guys in an email as soon as we wrap up. We'll say goodbye, Mike, one more time. What's the website?

Hartman Academy. No dot com.

Yeah. Which was the mistake I kept making, by the way. Guys, thank you so much. Thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, man. Thank you so much, Mike. Guys, it was great and I hope we can do this again.

Absolutely. Thanks, Nick.

Thank you, buddy.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Mike Hartman Show. If you're enjoying what you've heard so far, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.