Rob January 2024 Solo Minisode

[00:00:03] Rob Howe: What's going on, everybody? You heard that. You know what time it is. Cracking at Coke Zero. And I'm going to do a little solo pod for you guys to give you some updates on what we've been up to at Diabetics Doing Things, updates on some of the things I've shared on social media about my own diabetes management, as well as some cool things to expect very soon on the podcast. Oh, that first Coke Zero hit every single time is so good. Okay. So what's been up recently? We have some amazing episodes coming up on the podcast as part of our adults with diabetes and living as an adult with diabetes series. We're going to cover mental health. We're going to cover physical health. It was going to be episodes of the Rob and Erica Show. Very excited to share that with you guys. It's January 30th at the time of this recording episode goes live tomorrow. January 31st. Can you believe the first month of the year is over? Hopefully everything's been smooth for you guys. I wanted to do this episode solo because I take accountability very seriously at Diabetics Doing Things, especially because we're trying to do some pretty ambitious things, especially in the diabetes community IRL. So not necessarily on the internet or social media content, but in real life, specifically around our partnership with North Texas Food Bank. So many of you know and have supported and been a champion for our pickleball classic, Diabetics Doing Things inaugural pickleball classic was December 2nd, 2023. So we're coming up on 60 days from that and we were able to raise a little bit of money. It was a profitable event for us. And all of those funds are going to support our work with North Texas Food Bank. But what is that work? Well, last year we ran a pilot webinar with our neighbors, which is the distinction that we give the people served by North Texas Food Bank called Getting Started with Diabetes. And it was an hour webinar with some amazing creators who live with diabetes, sharing their stories about their personal experience, about exercise, about recipes that were diabetes friendly, that they could make with ingredients in the North Texas Food Bank kits. It was a big success. But it also gave us a really clear picture that a lot of our neighbors that we're supporting, they don't have access to Zoom meetings or webinars. And if they do have access to it, it's just not their preferred mode of communication. So we had to go back to the drawing board and diverge our programming to address not not only the neighbors, but also the agency partners. And those are the people who run the pantries in the network of North Texas Food Bank. There are about 150 of those. So we had 50 or so of those folks who run those agencies join our first webinar, which was last week, under the banner, Getting Started with Diabetes. And I got to do the presentation and give background to our friends and allies. who are helping serve our neighbors in North Texas who are food insecure about what the signs of diabetes are. And so in our partnership with Beyond Type 1, this kind of fell under the See the Signs banner. And we took those attendees of that webinar through what are the signs of living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes? What are the statistics of people living with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes that may be undiagnosed? What kind of things are going on in your mind? and just picturing and bringing them into what a day in the life of a person with diabetes looks like. And that was really important for me because to me, that's like really one-on-one diabetes awareness. I think we sometimes overlook the, or maybe discount the work that we as people living with diabetes do on a daily basis for diabetes awareness, whether that's with friends or family or many of you who are diabetes creators sharing your journey openly on the internet. And I think we need to give ourselves a pat on the back for that because that type of diabetes awareness, the one-on-one impactful storytelling is what turns the tide. Those people can now be educated and go out to their communities and spread the word. so i came away from that webinar feeling extremely impactful it's kind of a weird way to put it but like i felt the webinar was extremely impactful and we had a form set up for our attendees to request information so we're going to print posters postcards and print materials to go into those pantries so that when one of our agency partners identifies someone with diabetes or when someone with diabetes sees those posters, they can request more information and get connected to our critical information with that for people with diabetes that we've produced for North Texas Food Bank. So good things happening on that front. That was the first of what we're gonna try to do three different events with NTFB this year. Our first virtual one, we're gonna plan an in-person neighbor event as well. So more to come on that, but really exciting stuff happening there. So just wanna continue to share that journey with you guys, build in public. We're identifying the needs of our neighbors with diabetes in North Texas and plugging in how we can. And thus far, we have really gotten connected with a lot of people who otherwise were disengaged, disenfranchised from diabetes content. They're not on Diabetes Instagram. They're not listening to this podcast, although I hope they find it. And if they do, they like it. But we as the educated diabetes elite, who I'm calling at the top of that awareness pyramid, the people who live and breathe diabetes, who share it personally, externally with their friends, families, and communities. We've got to open up ourselves to reach our community members who are not engaged with the diabetes online community or with this diabetes community in general. So I'm glad that we are doing that work. Also, my personal diabetes story, I think I shared a little bit on the Rob and Erica Show and many of you reached out and responded to my Instagram story that I shared about a week ago about my insurance that I've been on for years. And I think I, my estimate was about $130,000 that I paid personally through our company recreation to cover my and my employees annual healthcare coverage, because we cover a hundred percent of our employee healthcare. care. They have decided not to cover the insulin that I need. No longer are they covering Lispro, which many insurances I think are not covering anymore under their formulary. Part of that could be because of the potential for price caps or copay caps, not price caps, copay caps that we saw last year and we covered on this podcast during the Senate Judiciary Hearing, Senate and Commerce, Health and Commerce, one of those health and human services meetings that Bernie Sanders put on with the CEOs of the big three pharmaceutical companies. But whatever the reason is, they're not covering the insulin that my doctor is recommending. So I'm stuck in a sort of doom loop of prior authorization. So some of you gave me some really clear tactics on what to do about it. So I'm actually going to take some of that advice. I've screenshotted some of the things that you guys sent and I'm going to put together a appeal to get my insurance to cover the new insulin that my doctor wants me to take. So my doctor recommended it. My insurance said no. My doctor said please. My doctor said please again. And so now I'm going putting together a case on why I need that insulin. So I'll keep you guys updated on that front as well. More personal life updates for me on the diabetes front. The post went live today. SkinGrip has a scholarship fund, a SkinGrip for diabetes scholars, people who are looking to go to college. You can get some money if you apply for that. The link is in my link tree. You can go to skingrip.com and look for that as well. Really thankful for our partnership with SkinGrip. Just a really awesome group of folks over there behind the scenes, in front of the scenes, all the way around. Can't say enough about all that they do for people with diabetes, just a really cool brand and really cool folks. So if you have diabetes or you care for somebody with diabetes who is looking for money to help assist their college education, go apply for that. That's something that I think you don't get too many positive benefits of living with diabetes, but that is definitely one of them. And I think the more that we can as a diabetes community support each other's projects, whether that's businesses or whether that's ambitions or endeavors on the academic side. If you're in school, those things, I think we can grow from the strength of our network. We wouldn't know each other if not for diabetes. Let's put some benefits out there for that. So thanks to SkinGrip for supporting that and creating that program. And for the second straight year, we've done free promo on the accounts and donated the money that we would have charged to the scholarship program. So really exciting stuff there on the SkinGrip front. I also personally have been, I've now done, I think three sessions, two total modules of Goldman Sachs, 10,000 small businesses program, which I'm doing for Recreation Dallas, my ad agency that I talk about not so much on this podcast, but is my nine to five, my entrepreneurial journey. I'm in that cohort with 40 other business owners and it's in Dallas. really cool. There's businesses that are either restaurants or healthcare clinics, there's dentists, there's pediatricians, there's businesses of all kinds and then me. And that's really exciting. And it's a 12-week program and I'm learning a lot and mostly just normalizing being a business owner. We all have so much in common and being an entrepreneur for me, especially the last couple of years, has felt really lonely and really isolated. And just meeting other people similar to diabetes journey. If you're going through it alone and you feel like you're alone, reach out, connect with other people like you. It can make a huge difference, a huge impact. And my energy is up. It's been a really kind of, I was joking around with Erica and thank you guys for the feedback from the podcast with Erica. We often feel isolated, but my mood has been up. I have never been more busy, probably. I didn't think that I could get busier. You guys know I love doing all the things, but as I was telling my wife, I didn't think I could get busier, but taking a full day out of every week for this course has been a huge commitment, but I'm learning to say no. I'm being a better delegator, and so far, so good. Things are going really well, and I'm looking forward to sharing some of that wisdom that I'm getting from this coursework with you guys on the podcast and with my employees and my clients on the recreation side. and my other business partners. It's been a really cool journey and I'm excited to share. So shout out to cohort 28 of Goldman Sachs 10 K SB. We're doing some really cool stuff. Events wise on the diabetes world, I am going to be attending ATTD in Florence, Italy. So that's really exciting. We got our media credentials and we're going to be going over there and participating in that. So if you are going to be at ATTD, I know we have European and Asia listeners to the podcast. If you're going to be there, let me know. Let's link up. I'm going to be taking meetings during that time and attending some of the really cool sessions. A lot of really good panels. I'm excited to be there and just network with everyone. I always have a great time when I go to Europe for diabetes events. It's such a welcoming environment. I encourage anybody who has the means to go do that. So if you're going to be there, reach out, let me know. I'm looking forward to connecting with you guys all there. Lastly, just updating you guys on things here at the podcast. Good news. We have some partnerships that are going to be coming on board. So we're bringing ads back to the podcast. We didn't intentionally go away from it, but it was something that we hadn't really found the right partners for the right campaigns in the short term. So going to have a few partnerships launching in the next couple of months. So be on the lookout for that and support the partners who support our podcasts. There's going to be some opportunities for you guys to learn more about some of our partners and even participate in some of the campaigns that they have coming up. So if we are putting sponsorships on the podcast, just know that those conversations have been going on for a long time. And we are proud to partner with organizations and companies who are supporting the projects that we're working on and are making products and services for people in our community, people with diabetes. So be sure to check some of those out and support the partners who support our podcast, because without them, we wouldn't be able to continue to operate and bring the amazing events that we brought last year and are going to continue to do this year. We've got the event calendar rolling out. By the end of Q1, all those dates are going to be published. So keep an eye out there. And I'm excited to share that work with you guys. It's been a long time coming and some really cool things that can benefit you guys as well. So in addition to that, just on the personal note, hopefully you guys are sticking with your New Year's resolutions. I shared a few of those on the Rob and Erica Show for January, but feeling really good about where I'm at, both mentally, physically, personally, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. Hope you guys are living and thriving and keep it locked here. We got some exciting developments, exciting guests, exciting content, and we are going to continue to share the amazing stories of people with diabetes living all across the world. So you guys enjoy this little mini-sode. Hopefully it's given you some insight, but also the big announcement, the last thing. We are now adding a mailbag Q&A to every single episode. So you need to email mailbag at diabeticsdoingthings.com if you have a question, if you are going through some diabetes drama, if you had a weird diabetes experience and you don't have anyone to share it with and you want somebody to dissect it and talk about it, send it to us. Every single episode, we're going to break down at least one email from mailbag at diabeticsdoingthings.com. Don't make me make things up. There's plenty of room for your drama on this podcast. We get a lot of requests to be on the show and we can't unfortunately accommodate all those at this time. So send mailbag at diabeticsdoingthings.com your drama, your diabetes day in the life, your diabetes questions that you need answers for. And we will share it here on every single episode of the Diabetics Doing Things podcast. So that's probably the soundbite for this episode, but keep it locked here and we are going to be continuing to bring you amazing stuff. So I'll see you guys soon. And please send that inbox. I want to see your name in the mailbag. And we will share your stories. Okay, guys. That's all the time I've got. See you guys around.