Hanika's Stories

    Hello readers, today I am going to share with you a few life lessons I learned after my 2025 long course swimming season. Last year I wrote a blog reflecting on my 2024 long course season which I compared with my overall learnings from this season. At a high level, in spite of me moving up an age group, I felt like I did better than the previous year but fell short in a few areas. 1. Mental preparation This season, I felt that I was consistent in my mental preparation. However, I didn’t execute it effectively. I listened to many motivational speeches, but I wasn’t focused on preparing race strategies in my mind. I didn’t pay attention to the concept of visualization at all this season. I now realize that when I was falling short in my races I hadn’t played a short film of my race in my head before the event. Before my last swim meet, I did create a race plan on paper, but I didn’t study it enough to fully understand all the details. Sometimes, I overlooked stretching or c...

    I am super excited to share my conversation with Pawan Badhe. He is currently the Deputy High Commissioner of India (Ministry of External Affairs) stationed at Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was really an honor to talk to him and I appreciate him taking the time to talk to me. Our conversation was a lot of fun! Here are some of the questions I asked him: 1. What inspired you to pursue a career in the Indian Foreign Services? Pawan studied computer engineering in college. After he graduated, his first job was at Infosys. He worked there for a year. During that time, he was curious about civil services and while exploring that option he got interested and excited about foreign policy. This set him on a path to pursue a civil services career. Pawan has represented India at many meetings around the world. For e.g., in Geneva, Switzerland, he talked about women’s rights at the UNHRC, (United Nations Human Rights Council). 2. What types of educational degrees do you need in order to be a...

    I am very excited to share my conversation with Aaron Horowitz. He is the founder and CEO of Empath Labs. Our conversation was very engaging! Here are some of the questions I asked him: 1. What inspired you to start Empath Labs? When Aaron was 13 years old he was diagnosed with human hormone growth deficiency. This meant that his body wasn’t growing as fast as it should be. As a kid he didn’t understand what was going on with his body. This experience and over time he developed a passion to improve young children’s health. In college, he got involved with a program called Design of America. This program helps with using creative problem solving to figure out solutions for social issues. One specific project that Aaron did was with kids who had type 1 diabetes. He saw that a lot of kids were injecting their stuffed animals similarly to how they are normally giving themselves insulin. Seeing what the kids were doing Aaron created a teddy bear for kids with type 1 diabetes. T...

After my last swim meet, my dad and I were driving home. I had an overall poor season and didn't perform to my potential. I was disheartened and feeling low. During the ride, we were listening to this song by this band called “Fort Minor” and the chorus caught my attention. It was: “This is ten percent luck Twenty percent skill Fifteen percent concentrated power of will Five percent pleasure Fifty percent pain And a hundred percent reason to remember the name” I was very curious and asked my dad what this meant. He told me a story about Nora, a talented basketball player who put in a lot of hard work every season. Nora’s goal was to participate at the state championships. She knew that reaching her goal wouldn’t be easy. Nora went to every single practice. All of the reps and shots she made that season were different than the previous seasons, it was just harder. He said that Nora told herself, “If I keep practicing everyday I’m sure I will be able to get the techniques into my mus...

On March 21, 2025 my parents and I were so excited to explore the beautiful country of Italy. Our journey began from a 2 hour flight from John Glenn Airport to Newark International Airport. Once our flight landed my family and I went to the United Polaris Lounge. This place was not like any other lounge I have been in before. There was a buffet and a restaurant! We had lunch in the restaurant and the food was just delicious! Then I dove into all the food I could get from the buffet. After 3 hours my family and I headed to our gate. I was so excited to go to Italy I couldn’t stop smiling. The business class flight was an experience I would always remember. As soon as we reached Milan international airport we took a taxi to our hotel. I noticed how the Italians don’t care if they are speeding. A lot of our taxi drivers were driving 110 mph! I later checked and my dad told me that it was not mph but kmph. Duh!! Our hotel, Villa Torreta, looked like a palace. As we walked in we saw the lov...