Rob's 19th Diaversary ft. Erica Howe

[00:00:02] Rob Howe: Welcome back to another episode of Diabetics Doing Things. It is January 1st, 2024, which is my 19th Diaversary, which is exciting. So that's why we're podding today. And very special bonus content for the episode. My wife, Erica, is joining us for the first time on the podcast.

[00:00:26] Erica Howe: Wow, it only took how many years?

[00:00:27] Rob Howe: this will be the ninth year so nine years of pods and to make matters worse i think i was on your podcast in your first like four episodes so yeah yeah and you were on twice wow twice twice and you did 50 episodes total i don't know something like that so that's my bad at first it made sense because like you don't have diabetes this podcast has evolved and so have we wow growth Wow, well said. So a few months ago, a friend of ours, like a real friend, and I know her through diabetes, asked us for our perspective on like relationships and diabetes. So I kind of want to start there. That's not what this episode is really going to be about. But I think that's something that would really be beneficial to our listeners from your perspective, or at least for us to talk about. I think I always my experience is my own and that's all I have so I have always been pretty upfront about the way I introduce diabetes to people when during like dating and things and so for you I think being on the receiving end of that dates are usually around meals so like you test your blood sugar or give a pump injection or something it's I

[00:01:50] Erica Howe: tried to make it pretty obvious I don't yeah and truthfully I think it's always interesting to hear you talk about dating and diabetes um because I really don't remember it at all like I obviously noticed but like that like I noticed that you had a pump but I didn't really know what it was and I didn't I don't know like I don't I don't even remember when it came up I guess well I think

[00:02:18] Rob Howe: too we met at work and we sat across from each other so i was kind of fidgeting with diabetes a lot probably or it just like became normal because that was sort of just the thing that i did and

[00:02:30] Erica Howe: that's probably how i learned about it too in a more indirect way like you just talking about it

[00:02:37] Rob Howe: and i was just around well i think too like i didn't really publicly talk about or go out of my way to talk about it back then either like when we first met anyway just a couple years before started podcasting and all that.

[00:02:49] Erica Howe: Yeah. I remember, I do remember one time when it got brought up and it was around, it was like one of those annoying diabetes interactions.

[00:03:00] Rob Howe: Speaking of annoying our dog. Oh my gosh. The ASMR dog just dragging his feet around the house.

[00:03:06] Erica Howe: It was one of those annoying diabetes interactions where like there was like cupcakes or something and you would like went to like eat one and someone made the, can you have that? thing and like I noticed you immediately get so irritated by it like and but again I think that was before that must have been before or in early stages of podcasting and like you really being like more out there with it so I think even then like you didn't even really say much you were just

[00:03:36] Rob Howe: kind of like curt about it that's that's a good way to describe me when people ask me diabetes questions that I don't want to answer. It's also interesting that Kurt was that fake account that I made during the pandemic when I was like following my own live show stuff. Kurt. And anyway, yeah, I get pretty bristly. I think with people are like, I don't suffer fools well anyway. So whenever there's like weird diabetes questions that I don't want to answer. I will say though, for people who listen to the podcast or, you know, because we have had a lot of diabetes creators and a lot of diabetes people who are like out with their diabetes. I will say you've, you mentioned it could have been early podcast days. I think like when you first start like being open about your diabetes, people, it causes people, it gives people confidence to ask you questions about it, even if it's not the right thing.

[00:04:36] Erica Howe: and i do think that while that's probably really annoying to you in the way that people phrase things and maybe their assumptions that come through in their questions is probably really irritating at least they're like trying to educate themselves to know more yeah i think that's always

[00:04:57] Rob Howe: the hardest part when especially when they make like the most common the thing that you've heard

[00:05:01] Erica Howe: a thousand times right or you know like even i i you know i have like my grandparents have type 2 diabetes and so like my mom and her family like they associate any diabetes like they they just don't know their experience is type 2 diabetes yeah so even though it comes like it comes from a place of concern to be like she doesn't ask this anymore but like early on be like can rob like should I have this? Should I bring this? Can Rob have this? You know what I mean? It comes from a place of concern even though it's a very annoying and easily Google-able answer question.

[00:05:45] Rob Howe: Yeah. I think that's where, although you go into the Google side of it and you can fall into a rabbit hole pretty quickly, most people don't look anything up, much less.

[00:05:54] Erica Howe: Yeah, she's going to be like, did he try cinnamon?

[00:05:56] Rob Howe: Right, yeah. so I think again back to the original kind of topic with it's been a hectic afternoon at our house the original question from our friend who was like in a relationship with a guy who was at first really uncertain about making a life long term planning a life long term with somebody with diabetes because of the idea that passing diabetes on to their family or children was like a risk he was worried about. And I guess for me, even though men with type 1 diabetes are like five times as likely to pass it on as women, it's still like one in 1,000. Yeah. So it's like such a low percentage chance that I never really gave it that much thought. So I think like that maybe by proxy never, you know, you probably didn't, like I was confident enough about it that it never kind of blipped your radar.

[00:07:04] Erica Howe: Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, I certainly never thought about it. Yeah. I mean, but I mean, I say that I never thought about it in like the early dating stuff. it's obviously i mean like it's a concern to but like with anything like if you had the choice you wouldn't want your kids to like live with it just like i think you if you had the choice you wouldn't live with it either but but i but again And I think you're to your point, like watching. If it's managed well, then it's fine. And so I don't know. I think I come I think I have a better I'm in a better place. I'm not being very eloquent with this. I'm in a better place with it because I do see that how you manage it very like. Confidently and well. And I lost my train of thought. but yeah i mean i know it's manageable i know you can live with it i know there are obviously like downsides dark sides all of that but in the grand scheme that's not

[00:08:25] Rob Howe: yeah the end of the world well and i think this is something that maybe for people who are really deep in the community comes as sort of a cop-out type of answer but if a kid with diabetes like comes into our life what better person to help them through than me or a person who lives with diabetes already yeah yeah there was somebody in the online community recently whose son i think is 16 or 17 like was diagnosed with type 1 and he's was like very publicly sharing them actually on linkedin and i just shows you where i'm downloading content wise these days concerning but um and you know it was basically a lot of that which was hey this sucks i'm really sad about it but everybody in the comments was like yeah but like what a better example what better example to have than this and his son was actually like seemingly excited about something he like could bond with his dad over like you know obviously it sucks like you said it's dark but when you can bond over it it's fine i think that's basically what we told our friend which was hey it's not really something that we worry about it's not something that we really had conversations about but if it were to happen in the slim chance that it happens we're not worried about it right so you now actually this is an important part of our discussion today we've always kind of been a content creator household. And even, you know, we talked about your podcast. We've done Diabetics Doing Things. We've done all the different things. We've worked with creators professionally in our careers. And you now have the creator crown of the Howe household. You have, I gave up the 3-1 lead and you caught me this year. You now have the most subscribers and followers in the Howe household. So talk about your bag journey.

[00:10:26] Erica Howe: well it's been unexpected and surprising started just as something fun which i think is probably the key to it right it's just something like and this is something that you as a person not you or but the metaphorical you as a person in advertising always want to talk about influencers and creators with your clients it's like the best ones this is a side note i'm not saying I'm the best one but I'm getting the best content the best creators are the ones that it's something that's really natural to them not just like um someone who's forcing uh products or just trends or things that don't feel like them which is a really hard thing to I think it's a kind of intangible thing it's almost like if you you know it when you see it type situation and so I feel like you know diabetes is like that is your is that thing for you like it's obviously very natural because it is your life and you have deep deep understanding of it so the things that you create and the conversations that you have are very niche and like effective because it's authentic. So now circling back, I feel like that's a reason why this content has taken off is because it's just genuinely something that I enjoy and I kind of stumbled upon and it wasn't something that I was trying to force. And, you know, part of that has been a very conscious effort to not try to take it seriously because I don't want to make a job of it. And I just I just want to enjoy it and I just want to use it as a playground to be creative because that's mostly what I've always have been after with my my projects like photography I the things I enjoy the most are just my fun little projects not the ones that I'm paid to do I agree and I and I think

[00:12:39] Rob Howe: I wanted to touch on two things the first is following the fun so like you said like being creative and just using that as an outlet and i think if you go rewind way back to before sort of the viral moments and things like that like that was basically all social media was supposed to be originally it was like just a thing that you can use to be creative in your own way and then they've evolved over the years obviously and and here we are still using them all the time but i think you hit on something really interesting in that creator process which is i think when people start out more often than not they're just doing something that they like or enjoy or are curious about or trying to create and then at some point it becomes a job or they feel like they have to they change or they feel like they have to grow or adapt their process to fit some sort of archetype or some sort of algorithm or some sort of like expectation and i see this a lot with diabetes creators and we talked a lot about on the podcast and this summer and fall working on the creator collective because diabetes creators burn out and i think creators in general burn out when they lose sight of what that original fun creative interesting thing is because they're trying to keep up or the trends or try to uh latch on to whatever else is coming

[00:14:07] Erica Howe: Or even the pace of it. I feel like I'm experiencing that today in our conversations where it's like, okay, I have these bags. Truthfully, if I was really following what I want, I don't want to do anything today. I don't want to clean a bag. I don't want to make a video. but I haven't like but the narrative in my head is like okay but I haven't posted on Instagram in a week already and the next time I'm gonna get to make a new video if I go with how I really want that to like the process that I really want to follow then I won't have a new video for maybe two weeks and then the and then the algorithm's gonna quote-unquote punish me because I haven't posted enough and like and and not that and that's where it's really important to me to not care. I did end up cleaning a bag today, but we took the easiest route. You know, we didn't. And it's still, I think at the end of the day, it took me top to bottom 40 minutes to do. And it's still something that's something that I like in a style that I like. And it's something, you know, very niche content that not everyone actually enjoys but me and I think that's the most important piece is like I don't really care if it does if it's gonna pop off it's like a video the type that I like yeah and I think

[00:15:32] Rob Howe: we talked about this a little bit already but we're fighting not turning it into a business because I think that's where many people go wrong too quickly I think when I was doing the podcast tim ferris was talking about this a lot on his podcast about how he like didn't do any ads or any kind of sponsorships until he had a certain number of downloads per episode i think it was like a hundred thousand or something crazy which we certainly don't have here but because he was still trying to figure out what it is and i think that's what i think too many too often the and i think this is a trend right now on tiktok you'll see a lot of creators who only have like one or two big viral videos but they're like big time viral like multiple million style look and feel or videos that are reaching that many people but then they immediately turn that into like a course that they're selling on like how to make viral videos and so then it becomes like well they didn't go viral making videos about how to go viral they just became an expert because something hit

[00:16:32] Erica Howe: yeah and i mean like you can look at my bag content versus my photography content like i did I had that photography page and was making reels and carousels and like doing all the quote the things you're quote unquote supposed to do I was posting regularly and the quality was good and whatever whatever whatever and did nothing it was like really I was really trying to make that work like make that something and it just wasn't taking off and um yeah so I mean like

[00:17:07] Rob Howe: think about how i think that's the other thing like there are imbalances in nature and i've talked a lot about 80 20 in our house this year as well as just on this podcast where you worked really really hard on like reels and stuff for your photo account that would get like a thousand

[00:17:24] Erica Howe: views like barely if that and then at the end it was like a hundred something because i was like

[00:17:29] Rob Howe: not posting very often right and like you would spend you do like a photo shoot or you go on a trip and like you'd like do this entire like well thought out like beautifully art directed and executed thing that no one would see and then you made like your first video about this bag and it reached like 500,000 people and so yeah I think that was really like sometimes that's like oh you can say oh well there's just aren't as many people or it's a really popular niche or like vintage and like these bag videos and DIY and repair is like popular and photography like everyone can be a photographer because we all have iPhones you know it's a lot it's a red ocean right or it's a lot more you know crowded but also there are photography reels that go viral every day so it's like you

[00:18:09] Erica Howe: never know but that's another thing like another area where like you were talking earlier about trying like feeling the pressure to change and to like fit into a mold like if i wanted to if i if that was something that was really important to me like i would have started doing a lot more of the kinds of shoots that do go viral and are also not really my style right and changing your style because of the algorithm yeah and like doing more things like i really could have started feeding into that and like going to meetups and going and like i don't know networking and like just growing my own community of people that i'm shooting and i because i feel like that's honestly how you're how you're growing your account is just in especially in the beginning it's just clients that you're working with which are mostly referral and then that grows and grows and grows but that's not what i wanted i wanted to do more just like fun artsy stuff that is maybe just my own aesthetic and not anyone else's and which is probably true but that's but i didn't want to change that

[00:19:21] Rob Howe: i wanted it to be mine yeah and i think that's why it's it's worked really well yeah thus far

[00:19:26] Erica Howe: Also going back to your Tim Ferriss thing, isn't he also the one that talks about do it 100 times, make 100 videos?

[00:19:34] Rob Howe: I think that's Mr. Beast, but same idea, right? You don't even know what it is yet. His thing is make 100 videos, they'll all suck, but on your 101st one, something will have happened. You'll have learned something over that 100 videos that helps you get to the next phase or at least figure something out.

[00:19:56] Erica Howe: I've been thinking about that with the Instagram versus TikTok thing because I originally started, you know, restoring bags. I guess we haven't even talked. We didn't even haven't even explicitly said what we're talking about. So we're just being. we're making people go look at yeah we're being vague so that you guys will go go look me up so I restore bag videos and I originally intended for this to be TikTok content and then for funsies I was like I want to do an A-B test and let's see what happens when I put this on Instagram too and we'll see which one does better and technically I mean technically I would say Instagram has done better which is the ironic thing but then we start I start digging into I start digging into my insights and looking at like who my audience is and how like how they're consuming the videos and how long they're consuming them and things like that and that starts to dictate my content strategies for each channel like now I have enough information because to this point I've just been posting the same video the same caption same everything across both channels because I don't know I don't know how to differentiate them and it's just more recently now that I still don't have 100 videos probably 30 maybe but but even then I'm still having more insights that I that I'm now able to use to like differentiate and like create unique experiences for both channels so the more you do the more you learn and i will say like your video process i don't know if you

[00:21:36] Rob Howe: can see it like at the post-production side or like when people actually see them but you have gotten way better at the process or it takes you less time i think like you from start to finish from concept to execution i think you probably are probably takes you at least half the

[00:21:52] Erica Howe: time and the quality is better or the same yeah maybe i think definitely i think early on because I didn't have a tripod that worked for my process. So I was doing everything where I was like holding my phone with my hand, with one hand and then trying to clean a bag with my other hand.

[00:22:12] Rob Howe: Or like you put it in a candle.

[00:22:13] Erica Howe: I put it in a candle to hold my phone. So yeah, I think it's just like more consistent. But yeah, I think overall it's like pretty similar, but evolving. Again, I'm not like trying to overthink it. I'm just like the things that I know I like, I just keep doing. And then if I have an idea to try something different, then I just do. And this is why it's so much more fun to work on my own stuff versus like brand stuff because you can't just on a whim be like, brand, I want to try this.

[00:22:46] Rob Howe: Yeah, I think it's so strange. Like basically being, you know, both of us are professional content creators for brands, you know, in our careers. And to your point, like you just, you could have the most creative like viral or like you know most modern or whatever idea but somewhere in that path of approvals even if you have like all the autonomy in the world somebody's going to be like well it's got to be different and i think that's something i've had to really learn 2022 i struggled with it part of it was my fault part of it wasn't but like when you become a branded content creator for medical products and for pharmaceuticals or you know med device or whatever tough like there's multiple layers of legal compliance regulatory because it's dangerous like ultimately it's it's a safety issue and the the compliance team doesn't care about what trend is is going so i think that's something too is like be careful what you wish for obviously like i love doing my diabetes sponsor content creation like our sponsors bring a lot of value to the podcast I think but yeah I mean like just understanding if your goal is to like get the opportunity to create sponsored content like prepare for that content to disappoint you because it's just like not as creative there's more cooks in the kitchen

[00:24:09] Erica Howe: and it's hard it is hard I also this is a little bit of a pivot but I also think if you're a person whose goal is to be a content creator to be flexible on what your expectations of success look like because I don't think in the context specifically of if your goal is to be a content creator for like a med device person or a diabetes creator specifically, that's niche. I mean, there's like a lot of diabetics, but not all of them are on social or not all of them are on the platform that you are wanting to grow. And not all of them are going to care or want to be engaged and tapped in or they don't vibe with you or your style or, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe like don't always it's I wouldn't always think of followers or views as the ultimate goal. the ultimate goal is engaging your audience and like being a part of like that community in a true way um are you like for you i think the some of those metrics are i think more tangible like in person um seeing people at conferences who listen to your podcast who follow you but maybe you know don't engage with you all the time or you're not noticing that or whatever. Or if you're in a position like where like growth is a lot slower than it used to be.

[00:25:58] Rob Howe: Yeah. I don't want to cut you off, but I want to add on to that because I think there's two points. The first is you're right. When I meet people in person who follow the podcast or follow me, it's way more impactful to me. And also I never know who they are almost like I've never seen them. So it's like, oh, well, yeah, you follow me or you've seen my content or something, but I have no idea who you are, but I am reaching you in some way. So a dad came up to me at the JDRF walk and his son has type 1. And I was the emcee and I was like just there early. And he came up and was like, hey, I think I follow you. Like, this is my son. Like, nice to meet you. Thank you for making your stuff. And I was like, cool. And I just hung out with him. And that was a really neat thing. I took a photo with them and had a really nice conversation. And that was really meaningful to me. And in those moments, that's, I don't know. I use the term influencer less and less, but content creators is kind of how I see myself. But those types of relationships are really cool about social media. One of our friends the other day was somewhere and he posted a photo and said, hey, on his story. and was like, hey, I want to play pickleball with someone. And someone saw it, shared it with their friend who was in that place, and they played pickleball. So to me, that's the power of social media that I really like, which is me saying and sharing, I have diabetes, there's all this stuff here we're doing, come be a part of it. And then other people tagging me in 69 blood sugars who don't even know me or don't even follow me because their friend told them to.

[00:27:36] Erica Howe: Yeah, it's the actual connection. So like if your goal is just to gain followers, like you're not you're going to be chasing the wrong thing. You're not going to be making the content that is really true to you and true to or is going to get you to like making those actual connections in the community. Another like little just small world thing that I wanted to share that connects back to the bags also is so someone found me on Instagram, I think. from my bag content pretty early on and asked if I would clean their bag for them.

[00:28:11] Rob Howe: I'm glad you brought this up because I was going to bring it. That was how I was landing the plane on the bags and diabetes.

[00:28:16] Erica Howe: Oh, yeah. And so they sent me their bag so that I would clean it for them. And when I cleaned it, sent it back, everything went great. It looked amazing. but then after the day that she received it she was posting to her instagram stories about receiving the bag and just the experience of like working with me and how happy she was with how it turned out and in this like narrative that she's laying out she's talking about how this the the meaning behind this bag and it was when she had three young kids this was like her diaper bag and kind of like everything bag, you know, should carry all your kids stuff in. And one of her daughters had type 1 diabetes. And so it was like a bag big enough to fit all of her diabetes supplies along with everything else. And how that was like a really significant part and meaning to this bag. She had no idea that I was married to you. And so when you know, that was like a really nice connection point that I was able to like talk to her about and then I ended up making a video and about it just because that was like a really that was so nice like I just loved that and wanted to like share that because it's like such a small world thing and every now and then I get comments or messages from people who either have type 1 themselves or they have children who also have

[00:29:45] Rob Howe: type 1 and so just a small world thing we're out there i think that was really cool though when i because she sent you like a little note about it and it was like totally like no she had no way of knowing i mean i guess she could have like internet creeped or whatever but there was no connection to me and her there was no overlap it was just a really organic thing that happened i thought that was really special i do too i love that okay so today is my 19th anniversary 19 years ago i was at Children's Medical Center. What's cool about this year is that I actually got reconnected with their team and I'm going to be sharing patient stories through the hospital, which is cool. I think I told you about that. I don't remember. But my pediatric endo and I are still close friends. He came to our pickleball tournament and is just a big supporter of diabetics doing things. And it's really cool. Sometimes your pediatric endo just becomes your friend later on in life. And so he got me connected with them and so we're going to be talking about that but I just came back to like today and I've been thinking about it and the last few months I've been joking about about like I'm I've been hard to kill since 1988 and I still feel that way I I don't necessarily like have any like I'm going into my like last I don't know year in the decade the second decade of diabetes so like it'll be 20 years like a nice round number next year and in my first 10 years that'll also be at the end of 2024 so in my first 10 years I didn't really go out of my way unless I was being interviewed for something to talk about diabetes and so the second decade I think was the opposite of that like I definitely was more have been more like up front leading with the diabetes and like letting people adjust to that and I think that's brought a lot of people into my life that have made my life a ton better and I'm really glad I I would encourage anybody who hasn't done that yet to just do it. Even if you don't want to be a content creator, just like leading with that, I think brings more good things to your life than it does negative. And so this year, like my goal, like I don't really have a diabetes resolution and I don't really do that very often because I'm in a really nice place right now. I think with my technology and my like rhythm and, you know, at the same time I have to, my insurance stopped carrying my insulin formulary. So like I have to write a prior authorization to get the right insulin for myself. So like there's still those things that are frustrating and annoying. But from a management standpoint, I feel really good. From a community standpoint, I feel really good. From diabetics doing things, I think we're focused on the right things. Our impact is growing. It's not, to your point earlier, we're not like growing at a rapid rate of like acquiring hundreds and thousands of people all the time. But our community is really strong and we are growing and we're expanding. And I think my favorite thing this year, as I like look back on like all the metrics and I shared this on the Instagram, but we had 100% redemption rate of our ticket sales for events. So everybody who bought one showed up.

[00:32:54] Erica Howe: And they were great.

[00:32:55] Rob Howe: And they were all great. Yeah, they were awesome. And so we're going to do, you were at all of them actually. So what was that like? I guess that was another thing I was going to talk to you about. This is a very unorganized interview. But you got to be at, you've been at Diabetics Doing Things over the years. You were at the Myabetic Awards. You were at the, you know, at walks. You've been all through it. This year you were at the PAX event in spring, the Coffee Roastery Tour. We're going to do another one of those. You were at Diabetes Legends. You were at the Pickleball Classic. You were my partner in the Pickleball Classic. Sorry. Hey, we showed up and went hard. You guys can watch the video. But I don't know. What was it like to be like actually boots on the ground, but also as like a bystander?

[00:33:38] Erica Howe: I mean, they were all great. I think that first and foremost, and I think that's maybe I don't want to surprised isn't the right word, but like it was nice to see how smoothly they all went. Like, for instance, the coffee meetup. Oh, I don't know. I maybe this is a me thing. Like I'm kind of like socially awkward with a bunch of people that I don't know. So a meetup to me, like I just picture it being like kind of awkward and people like who a bunch of people who don't know each other, who are not really talking to each other. And so everyone's just kind of like, what do we do? But it wasn't like that at all. Like there's people who came by themselves, people who brought friends or significant others. And everyone was so friendly. but I guess like if you're the type of person who's signing up for a meetup like you're probably

[00:34:30] Rob Howe: an outgoing person so I don't know I've been to meetups that are weird like that too yeah but they're usually at bars and so after everybody like gets a drink or two they start to loosen up or warm up and I think that was one of my like focuses is there's nothing against bar or happy hour meetups they're fine but I want to do something different and I think the a key to

[00:34:50] Erica Howe: success for your events was that they were all focused around doing something so like even the coffee one it wasn't just a bunch of people hanging out which it was for part of the time but there was also an activity to kind of guide through the entire time so it wasn't just like okay we've all kind of like hung out for 30 minutes now what yeah i think the programming

[00:35:09] Rob Howe: is key like it's and it's hard sometimes to think about because you don't want to over plan you don't want to micromanage somebody's afternoon but you know everybody's spending the afternoon with us there and i want to make sure that that feels good that they want to come back and so

[00:35:23] Erica Howe: the other thing i think is having the you had the right partnerships and like key players involved so um you know shout out pax for hosting the coffee one like the people that you knew in colorado who were able to one like help host the event and to like kind of seed it to the right people great and same with pickleball like finding Taylor, who was able to help tremendously with the logistics of it and just like the flow of things especially for you know people who take

[00:36:06] Rob Howe: pickleball seriously yeah i think everything went super smooth it did and i think that is something that I was trying to like guard. So one of the things I'm really carrying into 2024, but I discovered this year is guard against blind optimism. That's just a really good banner line for me. But even right after Diabetes Legends, everything went so good. I honestly just feel paranoid that we shouldn't like overlook how good it went.

[00:36:35] Erica Howe: Yeah, but I think, and also something actually that I don't want to overlook is how good your Diabetics Doing Things team is. Ashley and Eritrea are very good to help you execute, to help catch the details so that you're not having to have your brain spread as thin. And so I think that said, because the inaugural ones went so well and you have a really good team to be like to to sit down and say okay here's here's what went right and then here's what we need to know for next time and even just even just retooling the timing of like that you guys are giving yourselves to plan each of them and stuff so i really don't while i do agree that you should blind against or guard against blind optimism because you do tend to be just overly optimistic that I do think that you have a realistic shot of these actually like growing and continuing to be successful.

[00:37:47] Rob Howe: Well, thank you. That's really nice. And I agree. Ashley and Airtree are the right team.

[00:37:51] Erica Howe: Yeah.

[00:37:53] Rob Howe: Cool. All right. Well, I woke up this morning and my blood sugar was 106. Never take for granted waking up in range. Although I have been doing that since I've been on SmartGuard. shout out SmartGuard it is great so i don't know i think this is going to be an exciting year for diabetics doing things i think last year was our year where we proved the concept i've talked about that before next year we're just going to take it and continue to nurture it and grow it and try not to do too much because i think the incremental growth is really important longevity is something that I'm really striving for with this. And we've been doing it a long time. This will be year number nine, which is crazy to me. And we're going to have some great guests and we've got some big goals for the podcast. We published more podcasts last year than we had the previous year, I think the previous two years. So just getting consistent with that is really important to me. And I'm just thankful for people who are along for the ride. So if you're listening to this podcast or you've sent this podcast to somebody else or you're following us on social media or subscribed to our email list, you are awesome and I owe you a great debt. So come talk to me or bring your kid to come talk to me at events because it really does mean a ton to me. Like you said, it's different when you see like numbers online and you see subscribers or you get emails. When you see people in person and you're able to like shake their hand, take a picture with them, sign their t-shirt, whatever it is, make an awkward speech in front of 20 people at a coffee shop to break the ice whatever that is it those are really important to me and if you had told me that those would have been on the radar when we started this I would have been I would have considered it a wild success so

[00:39:43] Erica Howe: I know you're trying to wrap this but I know that when you mention it the kids wanting you to sign their shirts after the basketball event. That was so cool and so sweet.

[00:39:55] Rob Howe: I signed this one kid's shoes. There is something magical about the viral or like the avalanche of autographs. Once Sharpies started flowing around, everybody was signing everything. It was awesome.

[00:40:09] Erica Howe: Yeah, it was like camp, but they were only there for a few hours. So that's just so cool.

[00:40:15] Rob Howe: It was very fun. Yeah, more Diabetes Legends. that was you know my top day of 2023 I think hands down yeah and for 15 different reasons we also found a bag that day so oh yeah we found a bag in Denver we got to hang out with Gary Forbes who I guess fun fact you guys don't know this I never told anybody this but Gary and I are like the only two people on earth who really love the show See on Apple TV+ and we found that out as we were just like hanging out having dinner and that just cemented that he and I are just big time pros so big shout out to gary forbes who's a huge part of that day indeed do you have thoughts on see the final season on Apple TV+ no i definitely watch that solo okay i'll talk to you guys next week on our first podcast of 2024 featuring guests we'll see you guys next time bye