Travel, Diabetes, and Disrupting What You Think You Know with Dylan Leonard

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: Do I have a doppelganger? This was a question that was posed by at least three of my good friends in the diabetes community over the past nine months or so. They were just like, Rob, have you met Dylan Leonard? Do you know Dylan Leonard? You got to meet him. You got to meet him. You guys have so much in common. And I have to say, all of you are right. So my guest is Dylan Leonard. He is a creative from LA. He has type 1 diabetes. He played college basketball. He loves to travel. He loves to read philosophy. And we talk about what a creative life looks like for him. share a little bit about his type 1 diabetes diagnosis story, and dig into, in kind of random episode style, the questions that I love to ask, which is like something he could talk about forever, something he's changed his mind about recently, and something that he brings up in conversations with strangers. And so we have a wide-ranging conversation about everything from travel and the benefits of travel to living in a society where our brains are not wired for the abundance of today, and how we work on awareness and keeping ourselves always improving, even when things get difficult. So please enjoy this conversation with Dylan Leonard. Guys, who was MVP of the chat? Welcome back, listeners. Thank you guys for the feedback when I do these random episodes. Because today's going to be a little combo episode. You guys have not heard from this guest on this podcast before. but he's done some other podcasts which I will link in the show notes mostly on Risley Health but I'm doing this random episode because a few of you in the diabetes community like more than three I can think of three specifically we're like Rob do you know Dylan Leonard have you met Dylan Leonard because you guys are like there he's a basketball player he's a creative he's a director of photography he's Dylan Leonard Dylan man welcome to the show thanks for having

[00:01:49] Dylan Leonard: me man I'm excited to to chat with you always always good whenever we have the chance to chat I feel like if we don't have a time limit on the conversation, it would just go forever.

[00:02:00] Rob Howe: 100%. 100%. Whether it's talking about old Lexus SUVs or traveling or diabetes and basketball, it could go any different way. So I'm excited to have...

[00:02:12] Dylan Leonard: I think it's worth noting that we drive the same old car, both played college basketball. We're both big white dudes with brown hair.

[00:02:21] Rob Howe: Big guards, dude. We're out there. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, I agree. It's funny to me, people making those comparisons and then meeting you. And I get it. We're on the same path, just in different ways. So I love it. Love it. All right, man, let's talk a little bit about your diabetes journey, and then we'll dig into sort of the randomness of this episode because you've just been on a whirlwind of travel over the last nine months, both on personal travel journey as well as work. So I want to dig into that. That's always a topic that I'm interested in and a lot of people are as well. But tell us about your type 1 diabetes diagnosis story.

[00:02:58] Dylan Leonard: Yeah, I spent my middle school, early high school years fantasizing about being a professional basketball player. It was all I wanted to do. Obviously, the first step to that was getting to college. And I was diagnosed at 15. I had lost about 45 pounds. So it was not insignificant. I think I was about 185 and stepped on the scale and I was 140. And I just thought like, oh, the scale is broken because that's not possible. Exactly. There's no way that that occurred. And my mom just thought, oh, he's skinny because he's always playing basketball. And it wasn't until a family friend saw me as I was on the city bus heading back from a training session. And she was like, what happened to you? And I was like, what do you mean? What happened to me? I just played basketball for two hours.

[00:03:44] Rob Howe: a good that's like never a good context for that to happen to somebody yeah so she she called my

[00:03:50] Dylan Leonard: mom her exact words were that i look like a victim from the holocaust and so also not a great great image to have of yourself as a 15 year old boy i went to the hospital back in the day you know you spent four days in the hospital instead of what seems like today the modern world of diabetes is that you're in and out and you've got a cgm on you already so and i just you know funny enough I had the reaction that most people have, right? I thought life was over. I, you know, remember crying, thinking I was going to be eating broccoli and chicken breasts for the rest of my life.

[00:04:26] Rob Howe: Every 15-year-old boy's worst nightmare.

[00:04:28] Dylan Leonard: I had a big sweet tooth as a kid. And so I was like, I'm never going to be able to eat sugar again. And obviously that's not true. But once I spent my time in the hospital, went through all the education and whatnot, I just kind of went right back to it. After I got out of the hospital, I had gained that weight back pretty rapidly because a lot of it was water weight and retention and muscles and whatnot. And I went to play pickup basketball the next day and had no idea what I was doing. Had a thing of glucose tabs and was like, if I feel weird, I need to eat these. And, you know, that's that. And my vision went blurry and I couldn't see. And that was the first thing I'm like, oh, shit, I don't know what's going on in my body. It's scary. And so, but I don't remember it too much other than that event. And from then on out, it was really just like, I'm not going to let this thing stop me from doing the things that I want to do. And we were under-resourced, I'll say, as a family and didn't have access to the tech. So first 10 years, I didn't have a CGM. I didn't have a pump. Didn't know another person with type 1 diabetes for the first 10 years. Never went to a camp. Saw the endocrinologist maybe once a year. So it wasn't the best sort of upbringing as a diabetic. and a lot of it was just activity saved me, man. Like I truly don't know what would have or could have happened to me had I not been so active because I was taking so little insulin for so long just because I was in the gym all the time. And so when I got to college and I was playing college basketball, I mean, I was working out six hours a day. I would literally have days where I just wouldn't even need to take insulin because I was eating to keep my blood sugar level and then I would be working out. And, you know, I didn't understand the aspect of the fact that you could go into DKA if you went a whole day without, you know, like that stuff didn't register for me and I wasn't educated on it.

[00:06:26] Rob Howe: Well, I want to talk a little bit about activity saved me because that's something that resonates with me and my story. I think it continues to save me. I'm not sure how you feel about it as well. My identity is as an athlete, and I think at some point we are who we are. I think back to when you're rating athletes as an evaluation perspective in college, right? Your coach, you get to a certain point, and it's not that you don't continue to improve, but you are the type of player that you are. You have that sort of role at that level. And I feel that way sort of about my activity and the things that I need as a human. And activity is one of those. It honestly has nothing to do with the diabetes, but it is such a force multiplier for the diabetes, whether it's insulin sensitivity or muscle development, helping insulin absorption, being aware of what I eat and how that affects my body and my energy and my glucose. I know you've been posting since you've been back from your travels, back playing pickup basketball, like wanting to obviously be a high performer in that regard. How does that activity land for you today?

[00:07:26] Dylan Leonard: Is that still just kind of part of your identity? Oh, I mean, it makes such a difference because when I left, when I stopped playing basketball in college, I didn't touch a ball for like two or three years. I was just exhausted from it. Like life had been basketball for the last 15 years prior. And my blood sugar just completely went out of whack. Like I couldn't, because I was so used to being as active as I was, I was now like at 200 or above all the time. And I didn't understand like, oh, I need to go see the endocrinologist so I can adjust the amount of insulin that I'm getting and my carb ratios and all that because I'm not burning off as much. And now, like, I see a version of that when I have days where, say, I'm editing a project or building out the creative for a project and I'm behind my desk all day and I'm not moving. Like, that and lack of hydration for me are probably the two things that I watch. Like, okay, those stubborn highs just won't come down, you know, and so I've...

[00:08:28] Rob Howe: I'm laughing, like, if you're listening to this, you can't see me laughing, but I'm laughing because that's like my innermost thinking about diabetes and work is like, Ooh, I'll have like a big, say I go to Chipotle and I have like a high carb meal. And then I have two meetings in the afternoon. I'm like, Oh no, like I'm not going to be hydrated enough. I got to chug water in these meetings. I'm not going to be moving around. I'm going to be seated. I know that I'm going to have high blood sugar this afternoon. So to hear you like the hydration and the movement is such a huge part of my diabetes management. And if you put me in front of a screen for a couple hours and I'm not able to do my normal activity, my blood sugars respond. Even when my technology in the background, sometimes it's not even able to calibrate fast enough to, you know, those changes. So that's, again, another similarity between

[00:09:12] Dylan Leonard: Rob and Dylan. Yeah. So I've basically just worked in that, like, I play basketball twice a week. I try to have some form of activity. I know we talked about this and another similarity between you and I is sort of like the optimization of like sleep and routine. And so one of the things that I started doing was like first hour of my day, I would wake up at seven, go for a walk without my phone for 30 minutes. And then, you know, post walk, I'm stopping somewhere and reading for 30 minutes. And so the first hour of my day is no phone. And I'm starting with activity and and keeping things moving and doing that coupled with delaying the caffeine intake and you know having breakfast and all like I've watched my blood sugar kind of level out a little bit more in those mornings because I used to eat breakfast and I would just spike and have so much trouble bringing it back down it'd be like 11 o'clock and I'm like stuck at 250 and can't get get down from it and so it's I've sort of worked in those days when I know I'm at home okay I'm gonna go for a walk and take a call or I'm going to go for a walk and do like my language learning app or, you know, whatever it to break up those days. So if I'm playing basketball or if I'm not playing basketball, I have something that keeps me moving so that I don't have those days where I'm just

[00:10:32] Rob Howe: not even outside at all. For sure. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about like get into the randomness of this episode. We'll talk kind of travel and then I want to pick your brain and talk about your documentary that you've been working on with some other diabetics doing things podcast alumni and some amazing people here in the community. But like, what's something that Dylan Leonard can talk about forever? Or something that you continually bring up either conversations with strangers or with friends? Like what's something you could talk about forever?

[00:11:02] Dylan Leonard: Yeah, I so I have a couple things that they come to mind. One of them is books, just books in general. And I say in general, because there's obviously so many books that have existed. And books that I've read that have shaped who I am. And I think it's something that I never realized would impact me the way that it did. When I started reading, I was probably like 19, and I had just attended this, I call it like a seminar, but it was a ex-professional football player who held like a week-long course that was supposed to sort of educate you on sports psychology and how you could shape your beliefs and emotions and actions and all of that stuff and create your own reality. And so in that, we talked about not going to bed watching TV and reading instead. And so I started to pick up books that were in the realm of areas I was interested in. And I started flying through them over the last 10 years, 11 years, let's say, because I'm now. Let's, if I were to look at those books that I've read cumulatively, I don't think I would be in the position that I am today. I don't think I would be the person that I am today without having read those because whether it be from a, you know, personal standpoint of like bettering myself as a human being, an optimization of like how I live my life, ideas or lessons or things that I just couldn't have learned because I wasn't exposed to it. And so I think there's kind of an ongoing joke among friends or when I talk to people that like, I am kind of the king of unsolicited book recommendations. If you tell me about a problem you have, I 100% have a book that I think would be helpful. I'm not going to say it will solve your problem because I'm not trying to solve any problems. But like I I've read such a vast array of books, whether it be like self-help or psychology or philosophy or old Hemingway books or whatever it is, there's something that could either inspire you or educate you or help you, you know, change the way you're thinking or open your thinking a

[00:13:15] Rob Howe: little bit. What do you think is your most recommended book? Do you have one come to mind or like a couple that come to mind?

[00:13:22] Dylan Leonard: Yeah, there was one I just read recently that's actually one of my favorite books that I think I've ever read and it's called Civilized to Death. And it talks about this notion, he calls it the narrative of perpetual progress in that it's this idea that we have created as a society that just because we've progressed means that it's actually the best thing for us. And when you go back in time, historically, humans were at their peak in a foraging society. just in terms of how we interacted with each other, the lack of violence, the lack of war, the community, people's lack of struggle. And so I found it so fascinating because one of the examples was like, just because you climbed a mountain doesn't mean it was the right mountain you caught to climb. And so like, if you were trying to climb to the top of Everest, but you didn't know where you were going and you went to the adjacent mountain, well, now your journey to the top of Everest is actually further than it was to begin with because you went up the wrong direction and so it kind of brought that into perspective in terms of things like AI things like technology stuff that we've you know brought to the forefront that obviously makes our lives better or easier so to speak like it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the best thing for us. And I think a perfect example is that our brains have not caught up to the way society has

[00:14:46] Rob Howe: evolved. Yeah, I read Dopamine Nation a few years ago. And the quote from that book was like our human brain is not wired for the abundance of today, where like we can think of something and put it in our phone, or even just think of an idea of something now type it into an AI and it can be ordered and delivered to us within an hour sometimes and it's like explaining that to our great-grandparents who were even before like industrial farming is really only 150 years old in the united states right so like those types of things are would be totally foreign to them and like you said like our peak is as foragers as villagers where you know that's where we're most fulfilled and most happy and best supported but now because we have phones like we we don't have to leave the house to get all the information we have access to everything ever and at the same time kind of even back to the original point of like reading like fewer people our age and younger are reading than ever before because they're not even like a book to them is is just so foreign of

[00:15:47] Dylan Leonard: a concept and now we're seeing like right like people want people want people want to use the app that tells them the breakdown of an entire book in 20 minutes instead of spending two weeks reading through something and actually digesting the material. And I think one of the interesting things to me is like anxiety, right? Like we hear about anxiety all the time from everybody, probably ourselves. And one of the notions of anxiety that I find so interesting is so many of the tendencies that we have that make us feel anxious are things that occurred when an animal would have been stalking you and so you felt and chronic stress because of that but now it's the type of thing of we have those fight or flight responses from a conversation on social media and so many of us feel better without our phones like if you were to go a whole day without your phone while you would probably be stressed about missing something or work or whatever i often in moments where I don't have my phone on me, notice like this physical relief. And so that to me connects perfectly with this notion of progress versus is it actually beneficial for us? And, you know, I would argue with diabetes, but on the shorthand of that, because of our devices, I would love to be able to just leave my phone somewhere, but like my CGM needs to be read somehow my pump needs to be, you know, managed somehow. And so I think about that a lot.

[00:17:20] Rob Howe: Yeah. To me, what's been coming up and related to that specifically on diabetes is the pump interfaces are evolving and many of them are already and have been for a while like available on cell phones. And so then now I'm more dependent on my phone than ever. And kind of like you experienced that relief. I don't necessarily experience the relief, but I find myself to be more present and I find myself to be able to notice things going on with myself. I'm less distracted and I allow myself to be bored, which I had not been doing because I don't have to be. I can just pull my phone out of my pocket, you know, autonomously and be entertained. And so something I've done this year, which I sort of underestimated the impact it was going to have on me is that I leave my phone now in my office, in my house, and I don't take it into my bedroom. room. And I think like the initial thought was for me was like, well, I don't have to do that because I'm not a person who scrolls when I'm in bed. I just, you know, my phone sits on my bedside table and it's there if I need it. But what I'm finding is that I don't need it there and that I actually can just go in there and go to sleep. I wake up and now at least at the end of the day, the last thing that I don't, the last thing that I do is not look at my phone. And the first thing that I do is not look at my phone. And the benefits to that for me have been so substantial. And I actually haven't missed anything that I that was really important. Well, I think that's the craziest

[00:18:44] Dylan Leonard: thing, right, is like you you don't do it originally out of fear that like you're going to miss something and then you do the thing and you go like, oh, I'm actually like not missing out on anything. It's I think it's similar to the kind of work that you and I do. You could never take a vacation because you would go, what if I miss out on that big project or that client who comes in And it's like, we need this tomorrow. And you could have done it and it could have been a big contract and, you know, whatever. And that plagued me for so much of my early on, like early creative career. And then I got to a point where I was like, I would wait for those things. And in waiting for those things, I would never actually get to enjoy my life. And so I started to just be like, OK, well, I'm going to go do this for me. I'm not going to miss out like the things that that I'm meant to do or that that whatever, Like you got to have a little bit of an abundance mentality with it because otherwise you just spend your entire life not doing things out of fear that you're going to miss something.

[00:19:44] Rob Howe: I want to see how this lands for you, because this is something I think some of the big podcasters have been talking about lately, which is the delayed gratification aspect, like, you know, not being worthy. And you talked about the abundance mindset, which I 100% believe in and I think takes a lot of work, but it's also unlearning. and some of this comes back to me to basketball, right? Where on the other side of this sacrifice, right? So you have your friends who are either getting jobs outside of school time or they're going on vacations or they're hanging out with friends or parties or something on the weekends and you're in the gym or you're going to tournaments or you're going to get shots up. And at least for me, like there were some friends who really understood that and there were some that didn't. And like, I'm friends still with the ones that did. And it was just like, oh, well, this is the price that I'm paying to be able to enjoy on the other side of college. Like even something as simple as like, well, no student loans. Right. And so like that was the I'm going to sacrifice today for something in the future. I think the challenge being an entrepreneur, especially a creative one, is recognizing, you know, when what's what's a good project and what's a bad project or like.

[00:20:51] Dylan Leonard: That's why I'm such a proponent of sports, because like the lessons that I carry with me through life. and I saw something, I think it was on threads and somebody was like, why? You're a big threads guy, we can talk about that too. Yeah, I love threads. People were like, why do people list that they were an athlete? Or talk about they were an athlete and somebody had such a great response and it was because as an athlete, doesn't matter what sport you're in, if you are a high level competitive athlete, say college and beyond, you understand things in terms of work ethic, in terms of delayed gratification, like those concepts aren't necessarily guaranteed with your average person who grew up playing video games or who grew up being able to do whatever they want i didn't have a spring break or a winter break for 20 years like right i i never got to enjoy that and when i turned 22 and i finally was able to i was like oh my god this is amazing like i've been missing out on this but i also wouldn't change anything because I carry those lessons with me through every aspect of my life.

[00:21:54] Rob Howe: The thing that I can talk about forever, so like my answer to this question is the impact of sports and not just in professional, but just in personal development. Like you, as a young kid, you learn how to fail in public and continue. You learn how to take feedback from adults who are not your parents. You learn to be part of a team and like sacrifice for the greater good. You learn how to handle conflict resolution quickly with your peers. And those are not always easy to do. And I think of a lot of pain or mistake making from my life as an athlete. But I also don't think of them as these horrible mistakes that I made. They were just like, well, hey, I missed the shot or I made a turnover or I blew a defensive assignment and I got yelled at. But then I also had to continue going.

[00:22:38] Dylan Leonard: And that's something to fail.

[00:22:40] Rob Howe: Yeah.

[00:22:40] Dylan Leonard: And permission to fail. The opportunity to fail frequently, which like if you talk to any successful person, They're going to talk about how they failed over and over again. I think about that as well as the areas that I've been stagnant in in life were areas that I was afraid to fail in and therefore didn't take certain chances. And I think that while cliche, it's like that saying of everything you want is on the other side of fear. I think that that's a saying for a reason. It's a very real thing. Now, obviously, if you're afraid to go do a backflip, base jumping off of a cliff in switzerland like you know we could get into the semantics of it but

[00:23:19] Rob Howe: like well there's like some real fear that they're and that's probably healthy you know there's some healthy fear right i think let me see how this lands for you uh the older i get and the more i also i didn't get a chance to speak to this but like my dad was like and my mom too were like really big on like the only thing that they wanted my brother and sister and i to be long term was students forever and like lovers of learning so like reading has always been a big part of what they wanted us to do and has given me so much in my life in terms of the ability to just learn new things or interesting stories or new principles or what have you. So for me, back to this question, you mentioned that you study the sacred texts, you're reading all of the self-help, you're reading the philosophers of our time and times before. How does this land for you? Unfortunately, all the things that they tell you to do, you have to do. You have to be mindful, you have to journal, you go outside. You have to drink water. You have to do your morning pages. You have to not hold on to things so tightly. You have to not judge yourself. You have to think with abundance. Like how does

[00:24:19] Dylan Leonard: that land for you? It's funny because I think a lot of people complain about like the self-help books being very repetitive and sure, like some of them are. But at the same time, I go, well, if that's the case, wouldn't you think there's a reason for that, right? If these people were able to be successful and they're wanting to share how they were successful and it aligns with the things that other successful people have said they did it's kind of the blueprint as to how you can go about it and and become successful whatever your definition of success is and for me i i i'm really big on like taking things with a grain of salt what worked for you may not work for me and that's fine and that doesn't mean I have to go copy the Rob Howe like blueprint of how it worked for you because we have different brains and and certain things register differently and and whatever but you know steal borrow whatever you know and find out what works for you because so much of that stuff I'm not the greatest at being consistent with journaling and and maybe consistency as a whole is a bit of a struggle for me with certain things I have a creative mind that can go off into a million different tangents and different projects and things that I want to do. I've seen such a difference in my life from implementing those things. And I often look at those books, even if something is similar as to something that I've read before, it's just a little reminder, which is probably a reminder that I needed, you know? Well, it's kind of like you can read the same book over and over.

[00:25:53] Rob Howe: that's something that I've been more intentional about in in recent years is I kind of made this decision at the you know end of the year maybe 2023 I'm taking inventory of things that resonated with me and what I wanted to do and one of them was like I don't know if we need to read any new books this year we can just go back and look at old ones like it's probably everything that I need has already been written yeah let's let's examine that and you know something different like I've definitely read that book before but something different came out of me now because I have new experience. I have new perspective and something to come out of it. And it kind of really comes back to fundamentals, right? We all have different paths. We all have different priorities and different journeys. On paper, you might be like, oh yeah, well, Rob and Dylan are the same. But then it's like, even as simple as something is like basketball, like we're totally different players, even though we both have diabetes or both white dudes and we both like are about the same size. And it's like, okay, yeah, well, everybody is different. There's so much nuance to a person and not everybody fits within, you know, whatever framework that they want to get

[00:26:50] Dylan Leonard: comfortable within. Yeah, absolutely, man. And like I there's a book that I swear by. It's I think I told you about it, but it's the game of life and how to play it. And it's about 95 pages long. It was written 100 years ago by a woman, which if you think about where the state of the world was 100 years ago, the fact that a woman was writing about these things and that men were coming to her seeking help and advice just goes to show you how powerful and and yeah, be so good. they can't ignore you type of vibe right exactly exactly and i read that book at least twice a year and it takes very little time it's a very easy read but it's just a simple reminder of all of the and so much of that book is about the how our thoughts create our reality right like the things you think about you can create good or bad and so i often need that reminder because thoughts words whatever sometimes we make a joke that you don't really want to see how that could manifest in your

[00:27:47] Rob Howe: life and so your body doesn't know that it's a joke right your brain doesn't yeah you might know but your ears don't know you know and there's exactly you start to speak those things those words have power both positive and negative that's back we've all seen it to be true right

[00:28:00] Dylan Leonard: i kind of hate the word manifest because it's taken on this this character of like wishing for something but not doing anything and i believe that manifestation is obsession to a degree like you're thinking about something you're also wishing for it but you're putting in the action

[00:28:17] Rob Howe: that would allow that to manifest well it's it's a step-by-step process there's a book i read called the master key system which is about manifestation and it's like it's three things you say that's the manifestation part but then you have to do what those people do it's like say what you want to be, do what people who have that are, like do what they do. And then whether or not you become them or not, like you will be, if you do those things, you'll become that thing. So it's like college basketball player. I want to be a college basketball player. So every day I wake up and I say that, and then I have to go like, well, what do college basketball players do? And like, okay, well, these are the stats that I need to have. Like, these are the games that I need to be playing. And these are the workouts that I need to be doing. And then if you're doing those things, it's amazing how at the end of it, you can be like, oh, well, I actually, yeah, I am a college basketball player because I did the things before it happened. And that's the manifestation part I think you're talking about where, you know, there's a lot of work behind those things too. It doesn't mean it's just going to happen. You got to put yourself in the position

[00:29:13] Dylan Leonard: to make it happen. Well, and that lesson on going back to what we were talking about with like the delayed gratification of sports, to learn that lesson so early is such an important thing because I'm able to go like, my friend asked me this the other day. I think you'll appreciate this. He said, because we met six, him and I had met each other six years ago. And he goes, wow, dude, like, I can't believe it's been six years. Like, do you feel like you're that different from six years ago? And I was like, God, yeah. Like, I would run circles around that kid. Like, and I think I was a very, like, self-aware, intelligent, 20-fold, like, but the growth that's compounded in the last six years, like, I couldn't even recognize that version of me. And so I think like that compounding effect of putting in those reps, the reading, the therapy, the seeking different things and having conversations and trying to be open minded and travel and all of that stuff. You don't realize those little things over the course of not just a year, but five years, 10 years. It's it's pretty wild. And I'm sure you could look at yourself five years ago and go, who was that?

[00:30:23] Rob Howe: Yeah, I think about that actually a lot more recently. Like, what advice would you give yourself five years ago? It's not it's not like when you were a kid type of question. Right. And I think of that guy five years ago who was doing good, but didn't know what was coming because no one ever does. And I think you can probably go your whole life in those types of chunks and say, yeah, I've learned just even from experience. There's a quote I really love that I sort of changed my relationship with more recently is the quote is any fool can learn from experience. And, you know, at first I kind of framed that as like, well, because there have been people who've gone before me, because there are examples of what, you know, I want to be, I can live a mistake free life. I don't have to run into those experiences because I'm not a fool. I'm not going to do that. And the way I think about it now is like it takes some of that experience just to remind yourself what a fool you were before in a loving way. And it's like not in a like, oh, look at this guy with judgment, but just saying, yeah, I look at myself five years ago with compassion and being like, yeah, this guy's doing really good. He's going to he has no idea what's coming. And I can't warn him. But I know that because of who he is, he's going to learn and we're going to get we're going to get there. Because the other part of that is you six years ago when you and your friend met, if you had the ability to just magically appear and talk to that guy, talk to yourself, we're not ready for the information in the future. We have to have that experience and we have to build up that capacity to become who we are. You know, this podcast is Diabetics Doing Things. But more recently, I've been thinking about, you know, that's a title I came up with almost 11 years ago. And while the things that we do with diabetes are certainly a huge part of it, being with diabetes and growing as a person is maybe more where I see it now. And it's not about the accomplishments or the feats that we can have that make us worthy of living a full life with diabetes or living well with diabetes. It's simply being alongside our diabetes as we go and pursue the desires of our heart. And so I want to talk a little bit as we kind of shift into a different phase of this conversation. You are a very creative guy. You're living a very creative life. And part of that is telling stories through your documentary, which is upcoming. I know you're putting the finishing touches on. interviewing similar to how we've done on this podcast, but some of the world's best performers in their respective fields living with type 1 diabetes or people who've been part of, in the case of like Dr. Ann Peters, for example, been part of some of these amazing success stories with type 1 diabetes. First of all, tell us a little bit about the project, but I want to know for you, what's something that you've taken from having conversations with all these people that you've applied to yourself personally.

[00:33:14] Dylan Leonard: Yeah. So the documentary is titled Breaking Limits, Life on the Edge. And I wanted something that title alone, I feel like is a, if you have type 1 diabetes, like you can understand that because life is essentially always on the edge with type 1. And a lot of these subjects who we interviewed, they have literally built their own path with type 1 diabetes and sport. sports. No one had done what they do. Yeah. They had to figure it out on their own, obviously with the help of healthcare providers or whatever, sometimes not though. And, and so I, I wanted to put together a documentary that encompassed people from all these different sports. So I think we, right now we have seven or eight different athletes, all different sports and managing diabetes is different in every single one of those sports. You have different rules, different regulations, different environments, different climates and temperatures. And so the notion for me was how can I make something that for the version of me that was sitting in a hospital bed thinking that my life was over, how could I provide those resources that I didn't get while simultaneously providing hope and inspiration because so many people think that they can't do certain things because of diabetes or that it limits them. And it's like, yeah, it is harder. We do have to work more, but I don't think that anything is really off limits. It's just the notion of like, where do you limit yourself in it? And so obviously you have people who have multiple autoimmune conditions or things that might make something like freediving extremely difficult with type 1 diabetes. I'm not really sure how you would do that. Maybe there's a type 1 diabetic freediver out there who can tell us. But within the realm of sport that these people competed in, there's so much information, a life of information as to how they were able to compete at the highest level. Olympic athletes, world champions of their sport. Katie's an American Ninja Warrior. You know, like you have such a variety. Conor Daly has been, you know, in the top five, top 10 of the Indy 500 multiple times. And so going into it, it's really interesting. really fascinating because I've people have asked me like oh you know are you getting paid or whatever and it's like I've done I'm at a net loss I've invested my own money and thousands of hours into this I'm not going to make a penny off of it but what I've gained is one community because I didn't know anybody with diabetes before going into this project and so I've made friends obviously with the athletes and with other people involved and I've learned so much you know you're you're also a friend of Dr. Mike Riddell and he's he's such a good dude and such a character.

[00:36:07] Rob Howe: You cannot speak more highly of a person than Dr. Mike Riddell.

[00:36:10] Dylan Leonard: Dude, he's he's so great. And I just, you know, being able to connect with those people who simultaneously when I have a question, I can then go to them and be like, how did you do this or how would you do this? It's it's invaluable. And to be able to capture that on camera and ask every question that I could possibly think of to some of the the greatest experts in diabetes and exercise and endocrinology and and sport in general obviously we can't cover every sport there is but my thought in having seven or eight different sports is that between those seven or eight you can build whatever system you need in knowing this is how that person handled this. This is how this person handled that, you know, and it gives you the framework to really build whatever you need. Yeah. I mean, and it's, it's funny too,

[00:36:58] Rob Howe: like the network is so small, the, the world of diabetes. And I think people are so giving, you know, speaking specifically to Dr. Riddell, like you could have an issue with your insulin and your exercise or your technology and your exercise, and you can literally email the guy who wrote the book on diabetes and exercise and he'll get back to you. You know, like, those types of things, like you said, you're operating at a net loss, right? I think like, People have been asking me more recently about the economics of the podcast and how I'm able to do that. And I'm like, well, we have this really great supporter. His name is Rob, and he pays for all of it based on, you know, and also the sponsors and the brands that I'm able to work with who are either passionate about or selling things to people with diabetes and can benefit from our audience. And our audience is great about tolerating the ads that we've got to do. But we all benefit from this, you know, and there's there's something to be said about like the investment of of time and energy for a community. And I'm really excited to see Breaking Limits when it's ready. And, you know, at least some of the initial cuts that you shared, I think, at the Risley Health event, Rising Above T1D last year was really exciting. And, you know, I know you put a lot of heart and soul and time and energy and money into it. So I cannot wait to see it. I do want to talk really quickly because finishing the episode over the past nine months or so, let's just run down a list. You went to Vietnam for like three weeks to a month on a kind of a motorcycle expedition, like just you, you and the world and your camera and really enjoyed following along you for that. You then came back to LA and almost immediately jumped into another project, which took you to Mexico, to Australia, to Norway, to Florida, and then back to LA in the middle of that over like a five week timeframe. And you got to see a whole lot like part of the world, like your remote parts of Norway and going to Australia and like quickly getting on and off planes in the midst of all of that. Like I know you're a guy that loves to travel and read and learn and kind of take in the world. Like what's something that you have taken from those trips that you're maybe viewing the world differently or something that's happened along the way that's changed the way that you look at things in the last six months?

[00:38:59] Dylan Leonard: Yeah, I think like I've always viewed myself as a curious person. Like since I was a kid, I was always interested in exploring. and and I don't really know where like the switch happened that I realized I wanted to travel because I had never been out of the country until I was 19 but on this on this recent trip it was for a documentary series we were filming and the and that was the Mexico Australia Norway Florida project it was funny because I think when you travel by yourself you don't often realize like the things that you do. And one of the producers on the project, he texted in our group message and he goes, one of the things that I admire most about Dylan is that he can quite literally have a conversation with anybody. And he was like, he's literally like just struck up a conversation with a 70 year old Asian woman sitting next to him on the plane. And like the day before that, I had a five hour conversation on a train with this old Norwegian man. It's stuff like that, where I had always viewed myself as somebody who wasn't great at, you know, having conversations with strangers or was intimidated by it or sort of this fear of rejection that I would try and talk to somebody and they wouldn't want to talk to me back or whatever. And with travel, I think that's been one of the coolest things to see how quickly your views of the world can be disrupted. Like you might have this view as to how things operate and it's very much not the case. Like Like, actually, I want to find it real quick because I saw this the other day and it was so spot on to what I sort of view in the realm of travel. I'm hoping I can find it quickly because it was something that I had. Yeah, it was the cheapest education on Earth is a one way international flight. You think your values are yours until you watch an entire country live by different ones and sleep fine at night. different priorities different definitions of success different ideas of what a great day looks like most of your beliefs are not beliefs they're just the water you grew up swimming in and i think that that is really if i could you know describe what my life was like that's it like i i have just tried to put myself in uncomfortable situations anytime i felt like i was getting too comfortable in life and i think that that's a really easy ditch to sort of dig yourself in and fall into is everything is so easy and accessible for us at least here in the u.s if you're in a big city and you have access to amazon one day deliveries in a grocery store on every corner you know it's not until you go somewhere else and realize like you know okay i'm in rural vietnam mom, if something happens, like, who's going to save me? You know, there's no quick number that, you know, an ambulance is going to come. Like, I'm eight hours from the nearest big city. So doing things like that, it's disrupted or sort of pattern interrupted those ways of thinking, of feeling such a grasp on the life that we have in front of us day to day. And so a little bit of a tangent from what your original question was but i think like one of the things that i've gained was really the openness to talk to to be accepting of to know that there is a beautiful interaction that you could have with literally anybody on the planet no matter where they're from how old they are it's i think we we judge people whether we know it or not very quickly i mean scientifically we do it within like three seconds of seeing somebody so it's i think trying to break that and realizing like the dude who I had a five-hour conversation with on the train in Norway, I had no intention of doing that. Like he actually struck up the conversation with me and then we just kept it going and we talked about everything from like democratic socialism to what's going on in the U.S. to, you know, what our struggles were. And like we were both able to learn about each other's worlds. And then at the end, it's like here I am exchanging phone numbers and emails with some random dude that I would have never known existed had I not had that conversation. And not that you're looking for anything to come from that, but like the humanity of it, of like, I could go back to Norway and be like, hey, Paul, like, you know, I'm back here. I'm actually in your area.

[00:43:28] Rob Howe: Yeah, let's get some food. Let's get a coffee. Like, let's hang out, you know?

[00:43:32] Dylan Leonard: Yeah, no, it's such a beautiful thing. And it's something that I really, really love about it.

[00:43:37] Rob Howe: Yeah, I mean, I think that was really what I was asking. You know, I feel very similarly. I think two parts, part of it, like being a tall guy, people like to talk to you too. You stand out a little bit more, especially when you're an American, like somewhere like Vietnam, where you're like, you're clearly, you know, being a little bit average, above average height, you can, people are just naturally curious, I think of the tall guy walking around. And, you know, I think about that, like conversations with, you know, everybody, like, and I'm very similar. Sometimes the conversations are really surface level and just like, you know, kind of passing, but like people traveling alone, like we're all kind of like what you talked about earlier. The most highly evolved version of humans, we were just, you know, tribal people who had the literal, it takes a village type of discussion where everybody contributed and knew each other's names. There was only 30 or so people in your sphere of your whole life. And now the thousands of people that we can interact with on a daily basis online, sometimes we forget that like a conversation with a guy on a train because both of you can't go anywhere else. And, you know, there's something new that you don't understand in front of you. You can come away with it feeling a little bit differently about what kind of information you've been fed or what experience that you lacked.

[00:44:43] Dylan Leonard: And we're meant to interact with each other. Like, that's the thing that's crazy. Like, I, when I was in Japan after Vietnam, and don't get me wrong, I love Japan, but it was the loneliest I've ever felt traveling because nobody talks to each other. Like, there's something to be said for the, like, respect of, like, being quiet on a train and, like, letting people exist without them having to hear your Instagram videos on your phone. But that's neither here nor there. I think when I was there just the lack of people's desire to even interact with somebody they don't know it's it's a zero like people really don't care uh or maybe they do care and it's just socially not normal there um and that's not to say I didn't have any interactions with anybody but like most of the interactions that I had with people were other foreigners that were there and I had met people who had spent two years in Japan and they said like it's really hard to make friends with locals or it's really hard to like feel like you could ever belong here and so i i noticed that when i feel super isolated from from people like like how that affects me in other areas of my life

[00:45:53] Rob Howe: well dude you are a a very aware guy and very curious you talked about you know thinking of yourself as a curious person just to know the thing that you do and and have done in this podcast i think will be really beneficial and uh man the really only thing we have left on the agenda is to next time I'm in LA, we got to get a hoop run on the books. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's definitely happening. Get ready for the Instagram videos when that happens. Yeah.

[00:46:16] Dylan Leonard: Get somebody to post some highlights. We'll have a tripod out there with cameras hitting all the angles.

[00:46:21] Rob Howe: We'll hit the DJI mics and we'll be, you know, you'll hear the whole thing. So, yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to that, man. Hey, Dylan, thank you for your time. We'll post all your podcasts or all your social links in the show notes. But thank you for becoming a friend who otherwise, if you weren't sharing your story and me as well, I never would have been able to connect. And that's what this is all about, man.

[00:46:43] Dylan Leonard: Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me. It's always great chatting with you.