#1955 Lotus Flower
Lotus Flower
Scott has spent a week stewing on something and asks Jenny Smith to let him record it: what the attention economy is doing to people trying to learn how to manage their diabetes.
Jump to a moment
- Scott brought a grievance and asked Jenny to let him record it. After their rules-series planning call, she said they should have recorded the conversation that came before it. This is that conversation: a week of rumination about the attention economy, framed by Scott as a circuitous route to a point about taking control of your own outcomes.
- His core claim: social media stopped being a place you go and became a thing that feeds you. Jenny lands the distinction plainly — mention socks once and you get fed socks. Scott's version is that a culture of “here's a thing if you want it” became a culture of making you afraid, scared, or excited so someone can take fifteen or twenty dollars from you.
- He names the mechanics on air. Curiosity gaps, opening loops that cut before the payoff, FOMO countdowns, outrage bait, false personalization. His worry is that this produces the equivalent of empty calories for your attention — and that in diabetes specifically it means people get their attention taken using their own condition, get told it's hopeless, and never go find better.
- Jenny's counterpoint is the useful part. She pushes back when Scott says nothing he's done in a decade works, pointing at the survey results. Her framing of the actual problem: she can teach anyone the information, but they have to apply it and keep applying it. And she explains why she gives it away free — she cannot replicate herself or reach thousands of people one at a time.
- Two images that stick. Scott's cigarette story, told to his brother forty years ago: if you're fine knowing twelve people at a boardroom table are laughing that you bought those, go ahead — but they're trading your life for two dollars. And the lotus flower from the Odyssey, keeping people happy and numb on a beach while their time drains away. His ask is simple: go help yourself with something.
- Diabetes Pro Tip series — Episodes 1000-1025 with Jenny Smith — the thing Scott keeps pointing at instead of a six-second video.
- Listener survey results — The data Jenny cites when she pushes back on Scott.
- Jenny Smith — Integrated Diabetes — Jenny is a dietitian and diabetes educator who has lived with type 1 for over 35 years.
Every word of the conversation
Cold open & sponsors0:04
Friends, we're all back together for another episode of the juice box podcast. Hey. Nothing you hear on the juice box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Two quick ways you can help and support the show.
First of all, if you're looking for a sugar pixel, go to customtype1.com/juicebox when you buy through that link. It supports me. And if you want to go to t1dexchange.org/juicebox and take their survey, that's also a great way to support the podcast. Of course, taking the survey will also support other people living with type one diabetes, including research, t1dexchange.org/juicebox, and customtype1.com/juicebox. Alright.
Let's get you into the program. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by MiniMed and the Kontoor Nextgen blood glucose meter. MiniMed, of course, the innovators behind the MiniMed flex system, a small, sleek, and discreet insulin automated delivery system controlled from an app. Nothing comes close to freedom you can feel. To learn more, visit minimed.com/juicebox.
There is one blood glucose meter in this house, the Kontoor Next Gen blood glucose meter. That meter is on my daughter's person right now and at all times. It is incredibly accurate and waiting for you at Kontoor Next dot com slash juice box. Alright. I'm hitting record right now.
The conversation they didn’t record1:38
So Great. Jenny's back. It must by now be clear to people who listen that you and I chat for a couple of minutes before we start recording usually.
And I would would think so. Sometimes more than a couple minutes depending on what's going on.
Right? There are times you don't get episodes with Jenny because she and I just talk for an hour and never record. So, at the end of our little chat last week before we went into the rules that people break about diabetes, which is gonna be a new series that you and I are gonna do soon, you said, oh, we should have recorded that conversation. And I thought the same thing. And and I
I don't even remember now what we had been talking about. Right? There were a host of things I as I remember.
I don't believe that the topic is important, but I've been, I've spent a lot of my week ruminating on it on something, and I was wondering if, like, you wouldn't mind recording this conversation that we have about it. So Sure. Okay. Jenny has no idea what I'm gonna say yet, just so you all know.
I don't. I usually don't.
I'm I I usually don't either, Jenny. So so I I hope people can stick for a minute because what this conversation is gonna be really about is just taking some sort of control of your self and your outcomes and the things that end up happening for your health, but I'm gonna take a sort of circuitous route to the message if if people don't mind. So if you like the podcast and you like Jenny, hold on for a second because I think this conversation will get you somewhere.
Not if they like you, just if they like me.
Well, what did we learn? I'm just kidding. What did no. What did we learn this week in the I I've been making, my bad reviews.
Little musical things?
My I've been turning my bad reviews into musicals. So there's this one that's just so glowing. It's just like the content's great and but I'll put it right here so people can hear it. And then at the end, they're just like, and the host sucks. I was like, it's okay.
Podcast is my idea, but whatever. Like It's okay. I'm
so sorry.
It's okay. So, anyway, why did I end up I guess it's as good a place to jump in. It's any like, why am I turning my bad reviews into musicals? One, I'm enjoying Do It. I'm having fun.
When social media stopped being a place you went4:02
But two, I am stuck in a a situation that we're all stuck in. And and and I'd like I'd like for us not to be stuck in it, but as I stood and thought about it today for what seems like the fifth day in a row, I thought, oh gosh. This isn't a thing anyone's gonna fix. And do I just give up and lean into it? So I guess what I mean by that is I don't wanna be boring for people, but there was a time where, like, social media meant a place where people put things and you went and got them if you were interested in knowing more about it.
And Sure. And now social media is a thing that you turn on and it force feeds you something. Right? And it's it's obviously tuned and learned to force feed you whatever your your base desires are or fears or or what have you. That's true.
And and the people will
And feed you. I think that's a really important distinction to make here. It's it feeds you. Right? Like, if I say socks and I don't mention a brand here, I will probably now find feeds about particular types of socks, athletic socks, socks for yoga.
It feeds you.
It's gonna happen to you so quickly. And and but that's still a basic conversation around this. Like, what I'm what I'm telling you is that as a person who uses Apple podcasts or Facebook or Instagram to try to get me all I'm trying to do is remind you that I have a podcast. Right? That's really what it is.
Right.
Now my podcast doesn't charge you money. Most other things are asking money from you. And and we've gone from a culture of, hey. I have this thing. Here it is if you'd like to know about it, to I'm gonna make you afraid or scared or excited or happy and then try to take $15 from you or try to take $20 from you or 99 just $99.
Your TikTok shop has this thing here. I actually saw a guy the other day selling a pond, fountain. I don't know how many people own ponds, but I guess more than I think. And, and and I was like, what what in the hell is this? And so what you don't realize if you're just a person out there living your life is that there is an entire, like, parasite culture of people trying to figure out how to get your money from you constantly.
Right? And that took over social media. And so now that's how social media works. Anybody you're watching on your feed is trying to build up enough of a following to charge somebody money for something, Either you or a company that will use them to get you to look at their thing. Now listen.
I sell ads on a podcast, and there's an argument to be made that I'm doing the very same thing. But you can skip those ads. And I don't spend the entire time in the content beating you over the head with it. I don't start my content with literal psychological mechanisms to get you to be scared or whatever. Like, we just start talking, and hopefully, you find something in it.
And people have been learning through storytelling for the history of man. And and now suddenly, the shift has happened. And I I'm so I don't wanna sound pompous, but I'm very afraid that there's an entire generation of people, not just young, by the way, but old, who are now just being fed, I think, what might be the equivalent of, like, empty calories for your attention. Like, peep True. Yeah.
People and and when we focus it specifically on the diabetes stuff, it it it makes me sad, because I'm not trying to take your money. I do need you to click on the links to keep the whole thing going, but but that's neither here nor there. It'll probably keep going whether you do that or not. I really just and I think if you've heard Jenny long enough, you know, like, we really just would like you to have an easier, healthier, happier life and not struggle so
much. Correct.
But we've gone from a position of I can put that stuff out in the world and you will go find it to I can't get it to you because I'm unwilling to use these mechanisms.
Because you're being blocked, essentially.
I don't wanna listen. Here they are. Like, the Kontoor Next Gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of the Juice Box podcast, and it is entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you are paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contournext.com/juicebox, you're gonna find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Meijer.
You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter than you would pay through my link for the Contour Next Gen and Contour Next Test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you are paying right now even with your insurance. And I don't know which meter you have on you right now. I can't say that.
But what I can say for sure is that the Kontoor Next Gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Kontoornext.com/juicebox. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through my link will help support the podcast. Let's be honest.
Most of us would love to spend less time thinking about diabetes. That's exactly what MiniMed had in mind with the new MiniMed Flex system. It's small and sleek, you can control it from an app, and it uses the trusted smart guard technology that automatically adjusts insulin every five minutes. Less juggling, less micromanaging, more freedom. That's the MiniMed Flex system available now at minimed.com/juicebox.
There are links in the show notes and links at juiceboxpodcast.com to Contour, MiniMed, and to all the sponsors. When you click on my links, you're supporting the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful. Curiosity gap. You withhold key information. You won't believe what happened next.
The mechanics: hooks, loops, and outrage10:39
Number seven will shock you. Opening loops, starting a story, and cutting it off before the payoff. Oh my god. I was up the other day and and then the video starts. FOMO urgency before it's deleted.
This is the last chance countdown timers. Outrage bait, framing anything from a scandal, betrayal, destroying owning something, false personalization. This is why you are tired all the time. Like, that kind of stuff. All Jenny's not on social media.
Jenny, the the way some people are. And maybe you're listening and you're not either. This I could literally end up talking we might just be talking to other like minded people. Mhmm. Like, right, they might just be like, oh my god.
I'm seeing this too. But if you're trapped in that, you're I'm never gonna get the thing to you. And now I'm seeing people in the diabetes community, they're try they're using they're using these social media, like, tricks to try to get you to look at them. But Sure. You can't explain you can't explain foot on the floor in in four seconds.
And and so, I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Like, we started off with two minute videos, then it went down to one minute videos. Now it's thirty seconds. And if you look at the average rate that people watch an Instagram reel, Jenny, it's three seconds. Six seconds is a long watch on a reel.
Mhmm. And the only ones that people sit on are whatever the thing is that lights your brain up. People beating each other up in the parking lot, car chases, arguing, you know, pitting people against each other. Whatever your whatever your, I guess, kink is online. Like, those are the only things where people watch for more than three to six seconds.
And so can't I can't help you in six seconds. You you know what I mean? I don't know how.
Just I can't either. I can't boil it down to a two second snippet because there's there's more to it. I mean, this isn't six seconds of throw these things in a bowl and microwave it for 90 seconds, and here's your recipe. That that's that's not what this is.
Yeah. I and I'm not go I I'm not going to. I'm not willing to. I'm not able to do something visual to trick you into watching while we're talking over top of it, and it's not going to work anyway. Like like in the end, the algorithm, it I know this sounds, I've heard people say this before, and it sounds paranoid.
Like, you know, I I back in the day, like, in the last five or six years, you'd hear, like, YouTube creators talk about being shadow banned by the platform. Like, I said a word and now I can't get my video out somewhere or something like that. It's a 100% true. Mhmm. My stuff I mean, guys, I I've I've put through really hard work 86,000 active people in a in a private Facebook group.
Mhmm. They're and if you listen to people about it, they they think it's wonderful. I actually did a I've I've I'm in the middle of making a survey now that now 200 people responded to it. And if you could see the the responses back from the survey, they're absolutely heartwarming. And people talk about that Facebook group is how valuable it is.
But if I, the guy who owns and runs the Facebook group, post something in it, I can't reach anybody. Like, no at this point, me if I got to a thousand of you, that would be really astonishing.
So Can you be a pretend person?
I'm sure I could,
but you think Not not that you pretend. But do you know what I mean? It's like, do you have to almost have your wife post the stuff that you want people to see in order for it to get seen? Like, that's sad.
Isn't that insane?
Really, really sad that you can't be you.
Do you know what I do? Do sometimes I I I have AI make a photo of a very handsome dark haired man in his thirties with a beard holding a pretty cat
And no shirt on.
And no shirt on. And then I post diabetes content underneath of it. And that actually works to some degree. And it it what it does is it attracts it it attracts people yelling about me using AI. Right?
It attracts it attracts I I'm sorry to say sometimes women who don't realize it's not a real photo who are like, hey. More of this, please. And I'm like Right. It's a computer drawing, but I'm
gonna tell you to check your feet, but, hey. Look at the picture of me too.
Could you please put your insulin in fifteen minutes before you eat? Like, okay.
Here's a handsome picture of a cute cat with me.
And so so, anyway, there's you know, that still only will draw maybe seven to 15,000 views of 86,000 people
Right.
Of whom which 40,000 a day are active. Like, it's an astonishing act. But my point is that what Facebook doesn't want, and this is where I'll end up sounding paranoid, but please trust me. I've been doing this for a long time. It's true.
Is that if I it used to be if I left a link, I could be like, hey. I wrote a blog or this this episode will be helpful for you. Here's a link or hey. You're newly diagnosed. Go check out the Bold Beginnings series at bold you know, this, that would be fine.
And you could see that link driving clicks. Then Facebook decided that they're not really a community. Facebook is an AI company that sells ads, and they use the veil of that community to keep people there that they are you are their customers and they are selling you advertisers, but they don't Mhmm. The advertisements. They don't sell them to you.
They give them to you. They sell the give to the advertiser. And so you they do not want you to leave Facebook. Unless you're leaving to buy something, you are not leaving Facebook. So if I leave them a link to something, it will it kills the post.
It won't let it be seen by anybody. So then people started to learn, well, I'll just put the link in the comments. Facebook figured that out and now it squelches that. So then people are like, okay. Well, I won't put the link in.
I'll just creatively write to you about what it is and you'll have to read it and infer and then go find the thing. But now the algorithm's so good, it sniffs out that you're trying to get them to leave, and it squelches anything you write that would indicate that you're asking a person to leave that platform. Now if you want, you're completely able to pay Facebook so that they'll show your post to people. So as soon as I post something as a creator, it says to me, would you like to boost this post? Then you can click on a button and pay them.
Pay them.
And then they'll show it to people, but they won't show it to the people in the Facebook group. They'll show it to people similar to like, you can't put up you can't pay to boost a post inside of a group only on a page. And it's Jenny
Notice that I'm, like, not Staring at I'm Yeah. Yeah. I'm sort of, like, dumbfounded by by all of this. It's manipulation.
Everyone you're all being manipulated. And if I tell you that, it's it's not gonna matter. I've watched bigger people with bigger followings try to tell you this over the last five or six years. People people it it becomes common very quickly. You don't realize how fast this is just what you accept now, and so there's no fighting against it.
I I I'm gonna tell you that this is gonna sound ridiculous for a second, but I saw, The Odyssey the other night.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It was good. I liked it a lot.
Was it good?
I I really did enjoy it. Yeah. Now I wanna be clear. I've never read. Is it a poem?
Is it a store? I've never read The Odyssey. Okay?
So Oh, really?
No. I'm sure I should, but I haven't. So I don't know how much, like, poetic license is in the movie about, like, themes or or outcomes or desires. But what I took away from The Odyssey was we had this golden city that worked where people just followed a basic rule and everyone was happy and cared for, and then slowly people got away from that. And then you look up a couple generations later and everybody is just mired in whatever is easy and and no one knows that's what's happening anymore.
And and I was like, okay. I I get it. And and so, you know, Odysseus is the one who comes up with the idea of putting the people in the horse. But then he realizes that that he shouldn't have done that. He that he that he tricked those people.
He told them they were safe, and then he murdered them when they weren't looking. And and he's devastated that he fell into this thing too, but as he was doing it, he thought he he thought it was righteous. He thought he was doing it for the right reasons. Always and what the hell does this have to do with diabetes? I don't have a pathway to you all anymore.
Six seconds versus the real answer20:11
Well, I think what you're getting at is that there's no way to sneak in.
I can't get
to There there's no sneaking. Nope. Right? And and you have you have a much better reason for wanting to sneak than he clearly did. Like, you wanna kill people.
You actually wanna try to keep them alive. But this is a sad thing that there's no way around what online has done in this type of group.
I'm holding this free thing that I'd like for you to have if you want it. I am looking here at hundreds of responses from people that I won't bug you and and read with you, but I am gonna when this episode comes out, it'll be online at juiceboxpodcast.com/surveyresults. And you'll be able to go see the impact that the podcast has had on people living with diabetes. Right? You can go see it in their own words.
They answer their own questions. It's a very fair, like, even survey. You'll see how overwhelmingly valuable it is. And the and the podcast is free. It's not a coaching service.
I'm not gonna ask you to pay at some point. But it used to be I just just go to Facebook and say, hey. Here's the bold beginnings. It helps people. And now I'm down to I've gotta go to Ohio next week to
eighties. Do too.
Yeah. Well, the the nice part about you and I'll get to have dinner with Jenny. That'll be the nice part. The rest of it's gonna be me trying to explain to other clinicians how valuable the bowl beginning series would be for them to share with people. Right.
It's I'm already so melancholy about this trip because it's it's not gonna work, Jenny. I've been doing this for twelve years. None of this works. The only thing that works is bouncing your hair or bouncing your ass or watching somebody beat the hell out of somebody in a Kroger. Like, that's the only way you can don't laugh.
That's the only way social media works now. It's click.
Yeah. It's clickable by visual excitement despite that excitement not being appropriate most of the time. Yeah. It's exciting to watch.
Not just appropriate, but I did something to prep for this conversation earlier today. I purposefully I know I never prep. Okay? I purposefully sat for twenty minutes and scrolled TikTok and Instagram Reels so that I could tell you with honesty, I have absolutely no idea what I saw during those twenty minutes. I have no recollection of it.
Like, if you knew what I saw and started to ask, I could not answer one question.
Well, I I think as a bigger translation, what fits is how we have to reach people in the context of a time frame that our brains have now adapted truly to less attention span. Right? We have we have more people with what is called attention deficit. We've got more issues there, and a lot of it does I mean, if you've looked at any of the information about devices
Mhmm.
And attention span and the problems that have come since truly since the advent of carrying your little small computer around in your pocket and calling it a phone. Right? Because it's it's not a phone. Yeah. It really isn't.
You have your laptop in your pocket all the time. Mhmm. And in that, it even boils down to now attention span on tests that kids get into college and higher institutions of learning with. They have had to change tests and the way that kids answer the questions on the tests because no longer can an 18 or younger going into college take the big exam and read two pages worth of information and then answer 10 to 15 questions. Oh, no.
Because their attention can't keep together all that information. They now have to break that paragraph down into small little segments with maybe one question about each segment, or the attention is gone Mhmm. And they fail. Yeah. That is sad.
You don't have the attention because someone sold it to somebody. And and then I'm I'm it's there's there's I if there's a thing called the attention economy. Like, there are people that their entire job is trying to buy your your seconds from you. Like, find a way to get you to look at a thing for a second. By the way, it most of you be like, oh, that doesn't work on me.
I don't buy that stuff. It's probably true. Most of those ads probably run by you, and you don't and you don't go buy a a new pair of headphones or, you know, a swimming Sure. Or something. But the point is is that you looked.
And because you looked, the person who sold your eyes to the advertiser can charge the advertiser. And the advertiser will learn eventually that this didn't work for them either, but they'll still spend all their money trying to get involved. It's it's I there is such an incredible vat vat of nothingness going on in this circle. It's it's I make a thing. I'm trying to get to you.
I don't have a path to you, so I go find a guy who's willing to say something stupid on TikTok, and then he'll be my path to you. You still won't buy my thing, but it was my only option. So that didn't work, so I'll get 50 people to do something stupid. And then I'll do a it used to just be you buy an ad on something that everybody watched, and then that was a fair chance for you to tell people about your thing. That that doesn't work now either.
What gets rewarded in the diabetes feed26:06
But it was also because the ad really like, who doesn't remember the I'm sorry. This is probably dating me. But the Band Aid jingle. Right? Or Bayer aspirin or the Kool Aid man.
Correct? Yeah. They stuck because they were they were lengthy.
They were too
and you spent time with it. And that's what when I you know, as I'm talking about, like, even exams, it translates into the whole context of just diabetes education and the fact that we have. I mean, what? We boiled things down into the small sips to try to be able to provide tiny little snippets that were condensed to the very major points that people should be using in today's life with diabetes.
And they're still good, and they work. But they're
too they're too long. You and you but you have you can't boil this down any further. Right. You can't. And you have to also then translate that into you have to you have to apply what you have learned by listening.
And the application then is very difficult because the concepts are not rocket science, but in today's world of learning something and then translating it to use Right. Means you like, you have to grab it and understand it. And today's world of scrolling, it's a quick snippet of entertainment. It's not that you're going to learn how to put a bow tie on your cute little dog. I mean, it was a cute little video, but, like, you're not learning anything from that.
Mhmm. So it's a your brain filters it through and and has lost the ability to file the right information in the right place to pull it out and use it later.
To your point earlier, I'm I'm spitballing here, but a TV show called Cheers, I think, came on in the early eighties, which would have been when I was in my single digits still. Like Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I was 10. Okay?
Uh-huh. And I think it ran for a decade. I didn't particularly like the show. It wasn't for me. It was in the background.
My parents watched it. Right? I have not seen it since then. I'm not looking at it now. Ready?
Taking a break from all your. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you wanna go. I know the goddamn theme song to that TV show. Right?
I can sing the Almond Joy song because of the Charlie Brown Almond Joy's got Yeah. Mounds don't.
Mounds don't.
Right. Right. And I don't eat candy with nuts in it. But it was on the Charlie Brown Halloween thing, which, by the way, you could only watch for one half an hour once a year Yes. On CBS.
I even know that it was on CBS.
Yes. Okay. It's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Come on.
Yes. Okay. So there's an argument to be made that my brain is full of that, but at least I still know it. I don't know one thing I scrolled a half an hour ago. I just interviewed a really big TikToker who I like about type one diabetes, and she says during the interview, I wish I had better attention span.
But this is how this thing works.
And Mhmm.
If I want to have a thing, then I have to do it this way. And what I'm telling you is is that when it's wrapped around your diabetes, I get it. I get that the companies are leaning into it because they've lost the pathway to you as well, they think. Okay? Or they're trying everything.
I get that the creators are trying to make the content to attract the guy, to give them the ad, and I understand what everyone's doing. I don't have a problem with people trying to live. What I'm telling you is is that all you take away from it is the hard stuff. The the the Right. Right?
Sorry. I was just attacked by a
Oh, no. I just I heard I don't usually hear that, and I heard that too.
She just launched herself across. I'm sorry. I have a yellow tree monitor in a cage. She just launched herself across the neck. Anyway, so she she really did.
So so they're busy making the only stuff that works. I already went over with you. The only stuff that works is, like, rage and everything. So it's like it's either, like, hey. The cure is coming.
So you all get real excited about the Elodon trial and get whipped up into a fervor, which, by the way, I think is awesome and will not be curing any of you soon. Okay?
Soon. Right. Right.
Okay. And so or it's they'll just take the opposite side of it. Like, everybody's talking about a cure. This is ridiculous. Right?
We're not gonna get cured and then just make you mad about that. You know why we're not gonna get cured, Jenny? It's because of big pharma. They're hiding all your blah blah blah. Alright.
Like so then they'll go that way. Or it's, oh my god. This device fell off again. Oh, thank god you had your phone to film the one time your device fell off this week so that you can go on TikTok and make a big goddamn deal about it. Alright?
Like Mhmm. Or, you know, I hate this pump. It doesn't work. Yes. It does.
You don't know how to use it. Okay. Like, great. And I Jenny, I would be happy to tell you how, but we can't do it in six goddamn seconds. And it's making me fucking crazy, Jenny.
“You have to apply it”31:10
Can you see that? Oh my god. I'm out
of my mind. We've had these very similar off off recording kind of conversations, the frustration of I can teach you all the information. I really can, but you have to apply it. You have to apply what we've done as the basics of getting started. Whether you're MDI or on a pump, you have to apply it, and then you have to remember what we talked about and keep applying it.
And, yes, situations are going to change, but the basics don't change.
And the basics are pretty basic. Like, sit to sit down and listen for like, I I try to make this point all the time. Like, that pro tip series, I can listen. From people's feedback, listen to it, half ass understand it, a one c in the sixes. Okay?
Like, it's just it's you know, you talk to people one on one. It's the same idea. But when I get a bad review about it, the review is like, oh my god. It's so long. I can't listen to all that.
Oh, well, then just live your whole goddamn life with a nine a one c then, I guess. And and then and complain to me that I didn't make the thing short enough for you. Like That
it wasn't good enough for yeah.
It it's not how it works. And then if I say something like that, they go, oh, he's so obnoxious. He's pompous. He said elitist. He said, no.
You're an idiot. Like like, just listen for goddamn it. Life's not that goddamn hard, Jenny. I'm going crazy this week. I'm out there making stupid songs about which I do find enjoyable and and but it's just to try to drag one person.
And by the way, it won't work either. Nothing I've done for a decade works because I'm not willing to lean into this.
It does. I wouldn't say that. It's not true.
Listen. I
know. Have been considerably helped. Obviously, your survey proves that. Right? But So you can't.
Why Jenny gives it away free33:04
I understand. I understand. It's not enough people. It's not enough. And that's what I wanted to say is that you're not you're not really noting this to the people that clearly have given much positive feedback about it.
It's really the fact that both I agree. And part of the reason I've told you so many times that I really have been happy to be able to provide this in a way that's free for everybody is because I cannot replicate myself, and I can't reach the thousands upon thousands of people around the world. There's not enough of my time. I just I can't talk to everybody. So this is a way to be able to provide that to to donate it, right Yeah.
In a way that is digestible. And I think that it quite honestly is. I mean, even my boys have as I've been reviewing some of the ones that I listen to, they listen, and they understand. It's not I mean, I don't have, like, 25 year old children who are, like, college educated. Right?
I mean, they're smart kids, but they're still, like, kid. Right?
Mhmm.
So it's understandable information, and where you're coming from is you really just want to get the information to the people that you feel like it's missing.
Yeah. Well
That's the frustrating part.
It it and and to then watch that attention economy steal your attention using your diabetes and then tell you how dire and hopeless it is, and then you agree to that and then go on your way and never find better is really it's just it's unnecessary. Right? You know?
Or that it feeds you more information about yet another device or another thing when truly it boils down to learning to use the tools that you actually have.
Mhmm.
Not being fed information about, oh, this trial, and did you see that this person did this, and this person, you know, had this happened? Like, it keeps it feeds you down a tunnel of more and more and more that leads you away from the basic thing that you really wanted to know was, like, how do I pre bolus? Well, you got, like, six tunnels that it's gonna, like, translate you to watching something else
Yeah.
Potentially relative to that. But eventually, you're gonna be watching cats play on the floor.
Yeah. And I don't dislike that. Also, I enjoy watching somebody beat somebody up in a Target once in a while. I'm not saying otherwise. Listen, Jenny.
Between you and I, I don't think there's anything better than watching a criminal be tased. I think it's fantastic. I Like Four
of them should be tased.
Actually doing something wrong and then the taser hits them and they stiffen up and fall over. I go, that's hilarious. Okay. So I've been
Mine is usually good for them.
I'm I'm I'm with you. I'm with everybody on that. Okay? But, like, it's it's I I don't know. I really don't know what to say.
Friends for Life was overwhelmed by diabetes influencers this year. Like, people just making, like, banging You mentioned that. Video content up to come out and to, like, yell and scream into a phone, and it's all cool. Like, it's nice even. And and I heard people say, oh, I love that person.
I'm like, that's great. I I think that's fantastic. But the person that told me they love that person is also looking at me going, I don't understand why my kid's low all the time. Right.
And I do. I do.
I understand why they're low all the time. Mhmm. We could tell you, or you could watch that more, I guess. I don't know what to say. You know?
But it's a it's a point to reference that there are quality places to get your information from, and this is by no means downgrading any influencer at all. No. I I really like them
all. Yeah.
I don't really look at them, so I I don't even know their names.
I enjoy my time with them. So, you know They
could pass me on the street, and I have I would have no idea who the people are truly. But the difference is that as an influencer, you should be, and I think you told several of them that you talked to, you should be trying to make a difference, not just look pretty on camera or not just put another device in a new location that, oh goodness. It's not approved, but gosh. It works really well here. That okay.
It might help somebody, but in the end, the goal should be that as an influencer, you are teaching.
Yeah. But you
You are not just looking pretty.
And on those two platforms, though, you are not gonna get the kind of clicks that are gonna get somebody to give you money for an ad. That's not how it works. It's just it's listen. I I have research here that because I I took your point. I am I am upset, but at the same time, hey, guys.
This is Scott. I'm just jumping in for a second to say that if you've made it this far into this episode and you're looking for help, the pro tip series, bold beginnings, Omnipod five pro tip, all the other stuff that's available through the Juice Box podcast, you can go through easily at juiceboxpodcast.com. Go into the menu. It's a couple little, like, dashes in the top right of your screen. Go to series.
Everything's free. It's complete. It's not a hidden coaching service or anything like that. Everything there is what you need top to bottom. It's absolutely free.
I would love for you to have it. Enjoy it. Do whatever you need to do with it. Let me get you back to the conversation. About sixty five thousand new people are diagnosed a year.
Okay. So you can give the number. There's two million people with type one diabetes in The US or somewhere near that. And most of those people this is part of my point. Most of those people have found their their level.
They're either they're either running around with a five or a six or a seven or an eight or a nine or a 10 or 11 or 12 or 13 or 14, they're probably not gonna shift. Most people aren't gonna shift from where they are. They have a chance to, but there's a lot of confounding things that get in the way. Right? So your best chance to help people is when they're newly diagnosed.
Yes. Okay. Hundred percent.
A million percent. And about sixty five thousand people a year are newly diagnosed is the is the rough number right now. My data tells me that I reach between eight and twelve percent of those people, which is really astonishing and It is. It's impressive. But I don't know how everyone else's brain works because I show that to people privately who are, like, behind the scenes.
They go, Scott, no one's doing that. You're the only one doing that. And I go, yeah. But did you are you not reading that we didn't reach eighty eight percent of the newly diagnosed people? Like, is that not how you see it?
Because it's how it feels to me. You know? And if ten percent of them are on TikTok right now getting super excited that a cure is coming, well, then that's ten percent of people who might not take great care of themselves because they think, ah, it doesn't matter. Like, I'm gonna go to Chicago one day and they'll shoot me up with this thing and it'll be fine. Or or or, you know, I or how is it possible that I'm seeing somebody today, an influencer just yesterday?
Because now I'm paying attention to it trying to figure out what it is telling me like, oh my god. I just learned this amazing thing. I'm microdosing my GLP. We've been talking about that for four years, and she's talking about it as if it's just a thing that
Reviews, and the ones that sting40:12
happened today.
She just figured it out. And it's nice because she's now sharing it with people, and I hope she does. Like but when I looked at the page and I looked at what was going on, yes, she's sharing it, and, hopefully, that will help people. But I have a critical eye for this. What she's trying to do is build up enough of a following that one of these companies is gonna come to
her Click in.
And make her an influence her. Like, that's and and, again, that's how this works now. It's fine, but you alluded to it. When I met people in person at this event, and a lot of them came up to me and asked, like, what do you think I should do? Because I'm oddly enough, like, I I don't know what it is I am and that's guess I'm an old guy who's been doing it a long time.
And I was like, please just try to help people. Like, I gave them the most honest advice I could give them. I said, you are really young and you're adorable and I see why these videos work, but another young adorable person will come along and take this from you inside of six to nine months. And they'll then think they're going to make a bunch of money doing this. You think you're going to, and you've made a couple of bucks now, so you're getting excited about it.
But then the next person will come in, they'll get popular. The algorithm will push them up. The companies will see them as a cheaper buy than you, and you will be gone like that. And the people who have been watching you, and I hate to break this to you, have overwhelmingly no idea who you are.
Right.
Like, there's because they don't look at you long enough. You know what I mean?
Right. Yeah. The most I mean, most people doing this, whether it's on whatever platform they're using, are not going to be mister beast.
No. It's not happening.
Like, you're going to get to that type of plate. Maybe I don't even know percent. Like, what percent might? I can't say that nobody will.
No. Somebody's going to.
Yeah. It changes enough, and this isn't just you could do everything that you can possibly do, but diabetes isn't really, like
It's not fun. It yeah. It doesn't lend it doesn't lend itself to this. I've been for years going, like, why are you trying to adapt TikTok trends to diabetes? This is freaking ridiculous.
Like, what Right. It'll get you eyes, but it won't I I don't know.
Like Right.
You guys don't really like, this might sound like complaining. Trust me. I'm doing fine. I'm not like, I'll keep making this podcast as long as I want to. I'll have advertisers the whole time.
I'll have a lot of people listening. This is not the thing I'm talking about. I'm not I'm not a person who's, like, you know, withering away and and complaining that the world changed from under me. No. I got it.
I'm I'm good. But, like, but for ever but for those other 88 of those people, like, I've just I've interviewed you ten years from now, and you're gonna say, I can't believe nobody told me this. I lost ten years of my life. I'm getting injections in my eyes now. I can't feel my foot.
Like, you're gonna tell me those goddamn stories, and all it's gonna make me think was I had the answer for you, and it was free, and it would have taken you about fifteen to twenty hours to figure out. And it's fucking upsetting, Jenny.
Well Yeah. And I I think I don't know. This was probably in with one of the discussions we had after you went to
One of the most?
It it what I think it was the scientific sessions.
Oh, ADA too. That pissed me off to no end. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
But we had a discussion, and I brought up what I've seen for years and years. And I don't I don't tend to go to the to the conferences terribly often
Mhmm.
Because what I end up seeing is a lot of smart talking people bringing up and discussing research or their studies and the endpoints of the studies proving very valuable Mhmm. But it not getting translated, and it goes into what you're talking about missing that, like, 88% of people. Right? Yeah. We got this information.
This research proved this. This study proved that we could improve outcomes considerably in this avenue with people with diabetes. Great. But why have I never heard of that? And I consider myself fairly Like, okay.
Yeah. Yeah. In the diabetes realm. Right? I mean, don't know everything.
I don't I don't say that, but I know a lot. And why have I never heard of this? And you did this study three years ago, and now you're presenting the information on it. So my frustration with outside of networking and getting to know some really super cool people and what they're doing and how they're applying it and their outcomes definitely being translated into practice. The grand majority of the information that's shared and is my frustration is that it it looks pretty on paper, and it looks awesome to talk about.
But it in the grand majority of education systems for diabetes educators and endocrine practices, it never ever gets there. So then people come, you know, to your Facebook group or whatever and start listening. They send you a message. It's like, why in thirty years has nobody told me this? It's because the information was there.
Yeah.
But it never got moved into the clinical realm to say, hey. This these are the new practice pearls. It has to be applied. So we have to start like, it's an institutional change.
Right.
In my opinion, it truly is the whole entire way that we educate has to change so that we have more educators like the small group that I have a chance to work with. I love my colleagues. They're phenomenal, and I wish there were more of the way that we do what we do. Yeah. Because we do make a difference.
But, again, we make a a such a small percentage of the people that I really want to help.
Right. I I don't think I've ever sat with a person personally who I haven't been able to help them get to a better situation.
Right.
But I can't to your point, I can't sit with them either, which is where my frustration comes because I found a way to reach a lot of them, but not enough of them. Your point is so, so the way I use I'm usually more flippant. I usually say nothing makes me more upset than to watch a bunch of smart people congratulating each other on LinkedIn about a bunch of stuff that's never actually gonna reach anybody. Yeah. We have a study that says this.
Yeah. Can you put it into practice? Well, I mean, that's harder. Yeah. Nice.
Awesome. That's great. Yeah. So I have I have a survey that has now gotten 200 people back. I showed it to a person in the industry who's a real helper, who's invented something really valuable for people and is and knows that side of, like, the business side of diabetes, looked at this and said, I brought something to market with fewer than 200 people in a survey.
Taking control of your own outcomes47:16
Like, he's like he's like, 200 people's a lot of people. I said, it's only been a week. I'll probably end up with a thousand eventually. And he goes, if you get a thousand people to answer this survey, that would be astonishing. No one does that.
I'm like I'm like, are you serious? Like, yeah. Most of the data is not drawn from even that many people. I'm like, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense.
And in these 200 people, Jenny, so far, what I've learned is the median a one c change from listening to the podcast is 1.2 points.
I was gonna guess one and a
half. But In of the 190 people who have answered the survey so far, a 122 of them have answered enough of the survey to give me this number. So it this is only based on a 122 of them. Those 122 people combined have had a reduction of 235 a one c points. It's 76 lot.
Yeah. Yeah. 79%, their time and range went up. 69% decrease in severe lows. And that's the kind of data that if I showed that to those smart people, they'd go, oh, that's a podcast.
No. I'm the guy that figured out how to get to them. Smart, pompous. And I'm then they call me pompous and mother and I get called obnoxious. It's not obnoxious to sit around pontificating about all the things we figured out that we can't figure out how to get to anybody, but I figured out how to do it, and I'm obnoxious for talking to them.
I'm like, I can't so there's two different worlds there. And if you if you don't see that the trickle down is never gonna trickle down, that's it. It's it's it's it's not gonna be told to you by somebody who's looking cute on TikTok and telling you to be scared or excited. That's not gonna work. You have to have these conversations, and it has to be with somebody who knows how to communicate and explain it to you in a way that will make sense quickly.
For good or bad, it's me. Okay? And Jenny and people that come on this podcast. This is how it works. My point of starting this whole conversation is is, like, if you're struggling right now, just go listen to those damn series.
They'll help you. But stop telling me you talk too much. I don't like the way you do this. I wish it was like this. I I don't care what you wish.
It works. Look at the results of the survey. Go listen. Feel better. Go on your way.
Like, I'm not even asking them to hang around and keep listening. Just feel better and leave. It's fine with me. No.
Well, that's why I like some you know, you've had other you've had discussions with other clinical minded people. Right? You've had other guests who are endocrinologists. You've had other CDCES on right? You've had nurses.
You've had other dietitians. You've talked to many other who do what I wish could be more of a true practice to, like, to put it into practice a 100% as a rule of thumb.
Yeah. There are a lot of people doing it.
It's that they they have the information. They get to talk to people. But in most brick and mortar, it's a time frame constraint. Yeah. And so what should happen is they should be able to say, okay.
We've started with this concept of pre bolus. If you want more in your own time here, go and listen. Here's a small sips. Here's a a pro tip. Here is this.
It should be a rip off page. Mhmm. If I was doing something, it'll be a rip off page in office that says, this will be your follow-up to the beginning of the discussion that we had today, and this will back it up. And next time we meet, we'll talk more about it, or goodness, you might end up listening to more of these episodes, and maybe you've gotten farther by the next time we have the ability to have an insurance covered
Yeah.
Like, visit. Right? But, I mean, if I could, that's the practice that I would change in terms of whenever somebody ends up being a diabetes educator
Mhmm.
They get a sheet that says, you know what you know, and for additional assistance for your patients that you wanna see good outcomes for, here. Yeah. Give them this. This is the supporting information in a really easy to understand way. Right?
But is that gonna happen? Not unless something big happens within the accreditation system.
Right. Yeah. And it's it's listen. The academic side of it is never going to, like, see this part of it. Like, it's it's people talk about how things should be.
Mhmm. I talk about how they are. Right? Like, you and and I listen. I would make thirty second content for you if I thought it could work, but it's not going to.
Like, I could I could maybe make thirty second content for you that would drive you back to other content, but is a person who's watching something three, six, ten seconds at a time actually gonna go listen to something that's ten minutes long? I don't think so. I mean, I've done it six ways from Sunday. There's a twenty one day mindfulness series that walks you through it. Would you like to try that?
Plenty of coaching services will sell you that for $3,000. Mine's free. Juiceboxpodcast.com/hub. Go ahead. If that's how you learn, do it that way.
Do do you wanna read it? Juiceboxpodcast.com/library. Go read all the transcripts. I don't care. I've done everything I can do short of I I I recently watched somebody who I have been from afar watching for at least five to seven years try earnestly to put good content out, and it never catches for them.
And recently, I watched them fall into the I'm just gonna yell and scream about the about the cure, and it's working. They're they're they're getting more views.
And I'm sure.
And I'm just like I'm so I feel sad for that person. I I because I knew I could see what they were trying to do, and it was a good thing. And they just gave up and just it feels like they went to the dark side almost. And I'm sure they don't feel that way about it, or maybe they do. I have no idea.
But every time I think about doing it, it makes me nauseous. Like, listen. This is my latest review for the podcast. Refreshing and unique. I've been living with t one d for almost fifty years, and I thought I knew everything that I needed to know.
I was wrong. My wife pointed me to this podcast about three years ago about after hearing about it from a friend of hers that she worked with at an elementary school. I started out slow. It was hit or miss with episodes here and there, but quickly became hooked, and I've learned so much more about how to make educated decisions about changing my pump settings. The tools on the website are invaluable.
I can't wait for the next episode to come out. Scott understands this disease like no nondiabetic I've ever met. The Facebook group is awesome. This is something that the diabetes community has needed for decades. It's been around for decades.
I'm glad that this person found it, but I've been doing this already. You scroll down through these reviews. It will not take you long to get to I can't get past the obnoxious host. Let's say I am obnoxious. Let's just give it away for a second.
The person thinks I'm obnoxious. Let's just say they're right. Shut up and listen to the thing and feel better. Like, what do you do? Like, it's like telling me, like it's like your doctor's Or yeah.
I would actually say to those people, read the transcript.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I'm not obnoxious in reading.
Read the read the transcript if you can't get around the way that somebody breathes or sneezes during or drinks their water during or whatever it is. Just read the transcript because the information you need is there. And if you know how to summarize or skim, you're gonna pull the information the way that you need it, and you never have to listen to the annoying obnoxious person.
You don't have to listen to how the the horror that is me. It's okay. By the way, I read that to my wife. She's like, she has a point. That is funny.
But but my my point isn't that I'm great or that people think that I'm obnoxious or wrong. My point is if your doctor tells you you need more protein, don't tell me you're not hungry for chicken. Just shut up and eat it. Okay? Like like, you you you can't keep telling me all the things that are wrong and the reasons why I can't help myself.
Like, it's it just oh, I can't. I'm too busy. I I got lost scrolling. I was doing this. I'd like to, but I I'm not the one I love is that I'm not a podcast person.
Aren't you? You how can you send me a note and say, hey. My a one c is nine. I really need help. And I say, listen to this.
And you respond back and go, I'm not a podcast person. Well, I'm a podcaster. This is all I've got to offer you. You came to me for god's sakes. What a bizarre reply.
What about a review that says he talks it's a fucking podcast, Jenny. What am I supposed to do? Not talk. What would that be? Here's what a podcast is where nobody talks.
You having fun? Just I I know. I know, Jenny. I'm sorry. I'm not mad.
I'm not even not even mad. I'm just it's been a long week. And I
It's it's more than anything. It's I think it's frustration. I am completely frustrated. No. It's frustration with, I think, a platform that doesn't support what you're trying to put out to begin with.
And then, I mean, I think that there are podcasts that I have listened to that I don't particularly love the hosts, but I do like the information enough to be able to get past it and say, okay. I I really needed this snippet or I needed that snippet. I may not listen to the whole thing, but I grab what I need out of it because I came to it because of the topic I was interested in.
Yeah.
Right? So don't as you mean, to truly say kind of what you're saying, it's like the person says, well, my a one c is here. How can you help me? Well, listen to this episode. Well, I don't like podcasts.
Nineteen hundred five stars, forty-seven ones57:19
Well, I don't know what to do for you then because you're the one that came to me. Yeah. Like, I don't know.
Listen. And in fairness of I think I have about 2,000 ratings and reviews. You know, I'm looking here. It's 1,900 of them are five stars. I think there's forty seven one star reviews.
I I I understand that it feels like it feels like I'm complaining about nothing, but it's not I'm not complaining. I'm trying to say to you all, you're being hijacked by your social media and it is stopping you from doing better, not just with this, but probably with a lot of things. And I'm you're if I say it, I'm obnoxious or I'm pompous or I'm like, oh, you're not ready to hear it. So you know? But please stop.
Like, go help yourself with something. You know?
But what you're telling is the truth, and sometimes the truth is really hard to swallow. Whereas a TikTok or whatever the platform is, it's pretty, and it makes you feel a little happy.
Yeah.
Right? About, oh, well, let me let me put this device here, and let me wear a green shirt at the same time and, you know, whatever it is. But your job and my job, it's not it's not to make it pretty because it's not. It's it's not pretty.
We do and by the way, we I think we make it interesting, and we make it understandable. And it's not, like, it's not boring. I trust me. There are plenty of people putting this content out. It is so mind numbingly boring.
Boring.
But it's right. But who? Just you drop your head through a wall. I I listen. If you Yes.
I I'll tell you the same thing I told my my little brother when I caught him smoking forty years ago. I said Mhmm. If you are okay with knowing that there are 12 guys at a boardroom table right now laughing that you bought those cigarettes
And making money off
of and making money off of you, then god bless you. Go get them. But they're stealing your life in trade for $2. Back then, was $2. I don't know what a pack of cigarettes cost anymore.
The people who wrote the algorithms59:21
And and social media is the same thing. There there are no shortage of documentaries where the people who wrote these algorithms are apologizing into the camera to society. They're like, I am so sorry. The person who figured out that when you get to the bottom of the page, if you push up one more time, it loads more, I've seen that person no more than three times apologize to society. I am so sorry I came up with doom scrolling, because that's what he came up with.
Like, it used to be you scrolled to the bottom and you were done at some point. Now it just reloads and reloads and you can't find the end of it. It's a slot machine. Like
Was that an was that an article recently in the Wall Street Journal? I feel like I read that.
He has that person has tried very hard to tell the world I shouldn't have done this. Like right? And so we're go find the one where every person who runs these platforms, their children don't have phones. Their children are not allowed on social media. Like, they they know you're being hijacked.
Right? Like Yes. They won't let their kids do it.
The iPad developer, no devices in his home for his children. None. What does that tell you?
I mean, it should tell you something pretty simple. It should tell you that, like and and even the way that so I went over how Facebook basically is really just an ad generating thing that keeps you trapped. You you're basically I don't know if you've seen Percy Jackson. I guess I'm on a Yes.
A home run. I my my boys read the books, and then we watched the movie.
I think I'm on an odyssey thing right now because they get into that bar, and they're eating the
the Oh, the lotus flower.
Lotus flower that keeps them there forever, and they don't know. Mhmm. That's what's happening to you. And but isn't that funny? Because as I watched the Odyssey, which is a writing just very old, it it's it was used then.
Right? She keeps him on that beach by eating a lotus flower, and and that's what social media is doing to you. It is keeping you a little numb and a little happy where your time just goes by and waste and waste and waste. And it used to be people would say, no one's gonna die on their deathbed happy about how much they worked. You know, I've met a lot of people who really take a lot of value out of their work.
It's actually doesn't seem to be true. You're definitely not gonna die on your deathbed excited that you saw 75 different people street fighting in the last forty five days or that somebody was able to trick you by yelling one of these lines out into a camera. Or I just interviewed Addie Taylor the other day who makes really like, she's a she's a type one TikToker. I like her a lot.
The lotus flower1:01:55
I know her
personally. She's lovely. She's like she said there's a thing now where if you pretend to put your phone down as the recording starts, it hijacks the person's brain for a second. So when you when it looks like, oh, somebody just thought, oh, I'm gonna make a video. Let me just put my phone down here.
That's a trick to get you to watch because the motion of the camera being set down makes your brain go, oh, what's happening? It's it's there's so many of those tricks that they're using to hijack you because they only have three seconds to keep you. And if they keep you long enough to get a view and they get enough views, then they're gonna have a company call them and say, hey. We'd like to give you $500 to make a video. Sure.
Life is being stolen so that person can make $500 to feed you an ad. I'm at least trying to keep you entertained or informed. Okay?
With no with with with no
I don't we don't do the, you know, I don't yell about, like, crazy things or do rage, like, baiting stuff. Or I I look at I never do rage baiting stuff. I look out there when it's happening. There were people arguing in the diabetes community recently about something. Every person making content paid attention to it and said something about it, trying to just desperately get you to look.
I did I didn't do that. I was like, I'm not I don't care about that. I'm not paying attention to this. This is ridiculous.
Nor do you probably have time to actually
Who could possibly care less? Not me for certain. And I know that the people that I reach with, you know, refreshing and unique. I'm so glad I stumbled across this. It's informative and applicable to everyday life with diabetes.
It's a lifeline for my family and everyone else's. Even this person who indicates a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. This thing's fun. It's funny, and you still learn. Like, I know that that's how it catches those people, but those people are hard to find.
And so there may so there's a group of people on on socials who are not getting the help, and there's a group of people who are not on socials who you can't find. And there's it's just everyone's hidden behind some sort of a wall. And the one thing that used to work overwhelmingly was Facebook to podcasting. But Apple changed their algorithm, and Facebook changed their algorithm. And they don't it's it's like it's it's like if it's not Dax Shepard or if it's not call her daddy or, you know, or it I I don't know.
If it's not, like, famous people making a podcast, the either
not matter.
It doesn't matter. There's nothing you can do about it. Like so my whole thing and look. I I screwed myself again. I did the same thing I always do.
I tried to help you instead of helping myself. I was on here to tell you, open up your podcast app and restart your downloads because they changed the algorithm, and you probably think I'm not producing content right now. It's because of the way the algorithm works right now. You have to turn your automatic downloads back on. That's it it got shut off in a in an iOS update on purpose.
And and I used to be able to just say, hey. Look. I made an episode about this. This is what it's about. Put it on Facebook.
Twenty, forty, 50,000 people would see it, and they could go decide if they want to listen to it or not.
That's Sure.
None of that works now. So now I'm gonna go ask clinicians if they wanna tell people about it, and they're gonna say no. And then I'm gonna come back here and just churn out this podcast until my head explodes, and then I'm gonna retire. Okay? Because and I don't I hate this is the thing.
This is a joy
Well, I think for clarification too, it's not that you're you're churning it out, I think, is more
I don't mean that. Negative.
It's it's It's really more like you're you've got a drive to give people the information that's needed. Yeah. And that's important. The frustration behind it is reaching people who are never gonna see it for one reason or another. Right?
Because unless you are like, what happens I guess my question, because I don't know. What happens when you do just a Google, for example, search for podcasts about diabetes?
You're gonna get me. If you ask You come up. If you ask AI or you ask Google, you're get you're getting you're getting juice box, like,
for sure. So then at least you're gonna get directed to where the podcast is. Right? But it's not technically through social media.
I'll tell you that. I'm gonna tell you something in a second. But first, let me you were right to, like I don't churn out the podcast. I work really hard on it. I really it's a joyous job that
I have. Enjoy it.
Yeah. I real it it really is. Everything around it is set up to make me insane. Imagine if your job was baking cookies, and you loved baking cookies. And then as soon as you took the cookies out of the oven, a giant came over you and smacked you in the head and knocked the cookies on the floor.
That's me. Okay? I'm the cookie maker on the floor watching the giant step on my cookies. I I go, oh, that's a beautiful cookie. Someone will really ow.
Fuck. Cookies are smashed. That's it. Every day of my life except
pretty angry about that.
Except for except for the one thing that still works, word-of-mouth. Yeah. Word-of-mouth is how the podcast gets spread around. It's by clinicians. It's by people who listen to it.
It's by school nurses that I have data on who share you'd be stunned by the number of ways that the podcast is shared. That's the only thing that works. Okay? And it's it's it and I need you to download the show. Like, there's it's a two pronged idea.
You gotta download the show so you can hear it, and you gotta download the show so people will buy ads on it so I can make it again so you can hear it. It's very simple. Okay? That's how it works. And at the moment, maybe I'm never gonna grow it.
Like, maybe I'll never go find those other people because to your point about, like, somebody's gonna Google it. My daughter's friend FaceTimed me from the store the other day, and she said, I've decided I'm gonna recock my bathtub. And I was like, good for you. And she's like, I don't know what I'm doing, and I need you to help me, like, you know, pick stuff
up. Find the product.
Like, I need a dad for a second. I'm So helping her walk through. I'm like, don't buy that. I have that. I can give you that.
I can lend you that. Like like, just get that right there. And I said, how'd you even get the nerve to, like, wanna do this? Like, where'd you learn about this? And she said, I TikTok ed it.
And I thought, shit.
So she was probably, what, watching reels or whatever they're called and
then No. She searched TikTok for how to recaulk her tub.
Oh, she did. Okay. Because I was I was wondering if maybe something came up, And she was like, oh, yeah. My bathroom looks pretty nasty. I probably should do that.
Like, I wondered if it queued her into doing something that in the back of her mind, she had been noticing.
Yeah.
And then because the information came up, she was like, I got time. Let's do that.
She uses TikTok like a search engine.
So I would never
Of course, you would.
I I
No. I I know. If you understand the that the the the app works on your base, like, desires and things that make you and they make you feel enraged, then if you use TikTok for a diabetes search engine, you're just gonna get either people with diabetes acting joyously, which is nice, but isn't gonna help you bolus. But you're gonna get people complaining that the the man's hold them down or that the cure is they're gonna celebrate that it's almost over. They're gonna do whatever it is that that algorithm makes that draws eyeballs with.
And the algorithm's not gonna dry draw eyeballs with, hey. I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a thing called the Smoji effect. And or, like, you know, when you get up in the morning, did you know that did you know coffee needs to be bolus for? There's one maybe you'd get on TikTok. Like but then what do you what do you do with that after you hear that?
What they’d rather you do1:10:08
You go, oh, yeah. It happens to me too.
Because there's more information about how how to do something.
Because there's no time. It's even possible that the creator has the information. I don't know how they're gonna put the time up because when you talk to them, they don't wanna put time into the video because it's wasted. If you watch the if you look at the graphs for, I don't know, 20,000 people saw my video, 3% of them stay five seconds, then it drops off a cliff, and you'll be lucky to maintain 10 or 15% of them till the end. So you have to get I mean, I don't know.
What's 10% of a 100 like, yeah. So to get a thousand people, you need to and nobody's getting hundreds of thousands of views. Right. So you're getting 10,000 views on a video, say, to hold a 100 of them to the end. And anybody who understands marketing or how the human brain works is like, that's not that's not gonna work.
That that's those people are never gonna make it to the next thing. And that we already know that if you put two clicks between discovery and the answer, you lose people. They'll they'll literally stop clicking. They'll go, I don't it's okay. You could literally promise someone the history the the the just the I don't know.
The pot of gold, I know where it's at. Here's the map, and I gotta click three times. On the second click, they go, I don't wanna be rich that bad. It's and that's just how the brain works. So I don't I'm sorry.
I I I apologize. I don't know. I'm really upset, Jenny. I am very I
am You're frustrated.
Also, I'm gonna go live my life. I want you all to realize that those of are right about me. As soon as I get done recording, I am I'm not gonna think about this again. I'm gonna go keep making the podcast and do the thing I know that's valuable for the people who find it. I just wish that it didn't feel like even after I picked up the cookies and put them back together and wandered outside that a giant bird didn't come down and steal them from me because it's either Facebook or it's Apple or it's Meta or it's Instagram it's TikTok or it's somebody.
There's so many implements set up in front of you, and every time one of them stops you, it tells you the same thing. For just for just $10, we'll show this to 50,000 people. If you put $25 on this, we could almost guarantee that it'll reach 10,000 people. Would you like to but you don't know that because you're not a creator. You don't know that the only stuff that you're Right.
That you're seeing is something that somebody is likely paying you to see, and nobody will will admit that they're paying. Sure. Yeah. And did you see and have you noticed how everybody's turned off their counters? Like like, you don't let they on Instagram, nobody will let you see how many views their thing has.
Oh, hi. Yeah. Because they don't
have Instagram.
Don't want you to know that nobody's looking at it. They just wanna Oh, I see. Like they're doing the thing, and they're a good place for you to put your ad dollar. Because I make content all the time and blah blah blah, and you should put it behind me. And then you talk about, well, I reach all these in fairness, the people I work with understand the value of the podcast.
I'm not complaining about them.
Of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just hi, Jenny. I gotta stop. I'm gonna have a stroke. I'm gonna have No. No.
No. I'm gonna go get an egg. I'm gonna have a nice egg. I'm gonna poach two eggs.
Oh, that sounds good.
I love a poached egg. I might put it with a half a piece of rye toast, and and I'm gonna
Do you know do you wanna hear something about funny about a poached egg?
Are we still recording? Go ahead. Tell me.
So when I when I was in the hospital at diagnosis, my first breakfast that next morning, I had options, and I was like, I don't know what a poached egg is. I like eggs. Let's try a poached egg. So I had a that was my very first poached egg. I really like poached eggs, by the way.
Do you know the secret to keeping them together in one little bit when you What's the secret vinegar? Yeah. A little bit of vinegar in the water keeps them together. That's a nice tip from me to you. Something you won't hear on TikTok.
There you go. You and eat your eggs. They're good for you.
Somebody's thinking right now is, like, I had to listen to an hour and ten minutes of this to find out to put a tablespoon of vinegar in a pot of water when I'm making a poached egg, a thing I would never do in my entire life.
Swirly. Swirly. Swirly.
Anyway, I don't know how that technically works, but the vinegar holds. So when you put the egg in the water, it spreads out and it gets, like, finger like, it almost ends up looking like an octopus. But and then it's hard to keep altogether, and you get the Right. You get the a lot of the white that's not edible. But if you put a little vinegar, a little white vinegar in the water, it holds it together.
You put it in before, it's, like, really, like, good hot water, or do you put
it in Oh, can the water's not your
what's your method? Yeah.
So I don't like I don't I don't like to I don't like to waste time. So I I heat the water up quickly, but if it's too hot it's too hot, it'll cook the egg too quickly. And I don't wanna I don't want a hard yolk in my in my poach. Right. So I get it up to a boil, and then I cut the the fire down.
Then I use the vinegar that helps to cool the water faster. And then I get it right where I needed it a little simmer, and then I throw my eggs in. That's it. I learned that in a cooking class that Kelly got me from
Do have a a swirl technique that
you use? I I have a little, basket that I
Oh, you have a little basket?
Yeah. You don't have a basket.
I have a basket.
Alright. I'm gonna listen, guys. If you're still listening, make sure your automatic downloads, especially in Apple podcasts, are on. Listen to an episode once in a while even if you don't care. I said, I don't even care.
Turn it on and let it run-in the background if you're not even listening. I let it run overnight while you're sleeping. I couldn't possibly care less. Just, you know, tell the algorithm that you care about it. It will show it to more people that way.
And to one last note about how, as you just said, you get the most people, it's word-of-mouth. Mhmm. So please share
Thank you.
Where you've found, right, whether it's with a new endocrine practice or the educator who's new to you or, just share where you're getting your information because that leads to more people getting more information even if you don't like Scott.
Yes. And and check out my website. There's a really a ton of valuable stuff on there for you. It's all always free. Like, don't make listen.
Don't force me into a coaching model. Don't make because I Jenny, you know how easy it would be for me to get a 100 people every three months to be on a Zoom call with me? Right? Charge them a couple grand, ride off in the sunset with all your money. I'm not doing that.
Okay? I'm just trying to give you the podcast for free. Just take the damn Jesus. I can't I'm I wish Mark Zuckerberg was here. I'd slap him open handed across the face.
I think many people would.
With a glove. Like, it was the I'd be like, sir, I challenge you to a duel. I would you were Poodles?
Did you use poodle noodles?
You were you've ruined social media. Facebook used to be an almost nearly perfect, like like, structure in the way it worked. Mhmm. It just and now you have to fight with it every day just to get it to do something. It's really it's and if you if you spent eight minutes looking through that Facebook group to see how it's helping people, how valuable it is, it you would know how, like, despicable it is to block people from seeing the information in there that they that they need to see in in lieu of whatever else you're showing them.
And and just and I'll just from a personal note for a second, and I know no one's listening to this that that could do this thing, but, like, be ashamed of yourself, you know, that you did this to the world. Like, be be really ashamed. Whoever set these platforms up like this to just be attention, like, whoring Grabbers. Minds. Like, just you should really you should just really be ashamed.
So, anyway, there's literally a lot of people, not just me, trying to help people and not just in diabetes, and you couldn't possibly be making it any harder. So and then you force people into these money schemes.
Right.
Yeah. I mean, you know, Jenny, there's there's a there's a culture on YouTube of people telling you how to be rich by being a YouTuber, but their job is to tell you that they are a successful YouTuber. So you want to be a successful YouTuber. So you think that you just don't know the secrets to doing it, But the secret is the only way to be a successful YouTuber is to YouTube about telling people how to be successful. But at what?
And then you go try to put their things into practice to sell your
And it doesn't work.
It doesn't work because the only people who are on YouTube are people who are desperate to figure out how to use YouTube. It's it's insidious, like, really, really horrifying. Like, you really gotta sip smoke look. It's hard to talk about because it's so layered. Go smoke a little weed and try to think about it for a second.
Okay? Or whatever it is you do to calm down, try to think about it a second. There are people selling attention to people looking for ways to learn how to get attention, to get your attention.
Sure.
It's it's horrifying, and you should and I'm too close to it. I'm realizing I need a vacation. I'm going to go to Ohio and have dinner with Jenny to relax. That's that's my big that's my big vacation. Yay.
Thank you.
Of course. Bye.
Something new just arrived from MiniMed. It's the MiniMed Flex system. Think about everything people love about MiniMed technology, designed for great outcomes, helping keep you in range, and made to be easy to use. Now in a pump, it's the size of two stacked vials of insulin. MiniMed Flex is fully controlled from an app, designed to stay tucked away, empowered by the proven automation that helps over six hundred thousand people manage diabetes day and night.
Order today, minimed.com/juicebox. Having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contournext.com/juicebox. That's right. Today's episode was sponsored by the Contour next gen blood glucose meter.
It's the meter my daughter uses. She has it on her right now, and you're one click away from having it too. And don't forget using juice box podcast links helps support the show. Friends, my diabetes pro tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward practical insights that truly make a difference. This series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin, dosing adjustments, or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control.
I am joined by Jenny Smith who is a diabetes educator with over thirty five years of personal experience, and we break down the complex concepts into simple actionable tips. The diabetes pro tip series runs between episode one thousand and one thousand twenty five in your podcast player, where you can listen to it at juiceboxpodcast.com by going up in the menu. If this is your first time listening to the juice box podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really any audio app at all. Look for the Juice Box Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy.
Are you tired of scrolling past clips that last five seconds? Are you an adult? Would you like to have a long conversation? Juicebox podcast is the place to be. Follow and subscribe.
I'll be here tomorrow with another episode. I hope to see you again.
Read the full disclaimer
© 2007–2026 Juicebox Podcast. All rights reserved.
