Pod Insights Vision Pros Live Podcast Type 1 Diabetes & Adventure: No Limits with Chris Roome About this episode What if type 1 diabetes didn't stop you from summiting mountains, doing 50-mile backpacking trips, or living life without limits? In this episode of Vision Pros Live, Chris Roome, founder of Project InsulNation and 26-year type 1 diabetic, shares his mission to take T1D adventurers out of their comfort zone and into the wilderness. From a sold-out debut trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to a planned all-T1D summit of Denali in Alaska, this is a story about community, courage, and refusing to hear "you shouldn't.
Connect with Chris Roome:
🌐 Website: https://www.projectinsulnation.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-roome-1a375a88/
Vision Pros Live Resources:
🔥 Automate leads with AI 24/7: https://ai.firstclassbusiness.io/
🎙️ Be a guest on VPL: https://visionproslive.com/
Timestamps:
0:00 - Welcome and intro: who is Chris Roome?
1:45 - Living with type 1 diabetes for 26 years
2:55 - Growing up hearing "you shouldn't, and ignoring it
3:45 - The birth of Project InsulNation: adventure meets community
4:55 - The mission: take T1Ds out of their comfort zone
7:25 - First trip: White Mountains, NH 30 applications in 48 hours
8:40 - The 3-tier system: beginner, intermediate, and expert trips
10:05 - Second trip: 50-mile Teton Crest Trail in August
10:20 - Expert level: all-T1D summit of Denali in Alaska (2028-2029)
11:10 - Why trips are T1D-only, and why that matters
12:05 - Medical professionals & campfire talks: education in the wild
14:05 - Caretakers welcome on beginner trips
15:20 - Scholarships, sponsorships, and funding the right way
17:20 - Walking away from bad investors as a startup
19:00 - Final wisdom: clarity + values = unstoppable momentum
20:12 - Closing thoughts and how to support Project InsulNation
#ProjectInsulNation #Type1Diabetes #T1D #VisionProsLive #ChrisRoome #AdventureWithDiabetes #T1DAdventure #NoLimits #diabetescommunity
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 All right, guys. Vision Pros Live, welcome in. I've got Chris Room in the house and we are going to record raw and real again. I'm on Hot Street this week. We had Marcus Ogden on who crushed it. We had Rich Potter on who crushed on the franchising side. These guys got amazing visions they're building and Chris Room is no exception. This guy is a legend as well with Insulation. He's doing amazing things that are driving amazing impact as well. And so I want to make sure that I give a little bit of backstory of how I met Chris. He was in what's called a hot seat session and Dr. Lance Nobbs, mastermind that he does via Clubhouse. And it's one of the coolest experiences because while it is a hot seat, nobody's there to roast you or hurt you. They're all there to help you make sure that you win as much as possible. And so Dr. Lance puts you in the hot seat.
0:45 Speaker 00 He gives some ideas of the challenges you're facing and then he allows you to just dig in with all of us strategic advisors and business people. We got some amazing minds in that room and every single one of them comes to bat to help that person move their project forward. And the person as willing, as willing as they are to be open and honest and to explore what it is they can resolve. Like it's incredible how far they can go. Some people kind of hide from that though. Not Chris Room. He dove in deep and was like, here's where I met, here's what I need, here's where the struggles can be. And he got so much wonderful feedback and then I saw this man start to apply it immediately to his vision. I saw him start to connect with people proactively. He's following all the values of first-class business.
1:28 Speaker 00 He's loving, he's patient, he's persistent, he's consistent, he's reliable. This guy is going to crush it with his vision. Let's bring him on. Chris Room, welcome into Vision Pros Live, man.
1:38 Speaker 01 Hey, thanks for having me, Jackson. Excited to be here.
1:41 Speaker 00 Absolutely. Brother, tell me about, tell us all about Insulation. What's your vision? Where'd it come from? I'm just gonna let you go.
1:49 Speaker 01 All right, great. Yeah, so Project Insulation came to fruition about six to eight months ago. Me personally, I'm a type one diabetic. I was diagnosed in January of 2000. So I've been living with type one diabetes for a little over 26 years. In my journey through my own type one diabetic journey, there's been a lot of new scientific.
2:15 Speaker 01 I guess breakthroughs is the best word that have allowed people to do a lot more than they used to in the past. But when I was growing up, there really wasn't much in the way of challenge or encouragement or direction in going out and doing extreme things. My background is very much outdoors, very much physically challenging, demanding mentally, mentally demanding as well. And as I was growing up, all I kept hearing was, no, you shouldn't, you shouldn't, you shouldn't, you shouldn't as a type one diabetic. And that that never stopped me. I always just went out, did what I wanted to do and figured it out on the way.
2:59 Speaker 01 You know, some may say it wasn't the best way to do things. But through doing that, I learned a lot about myself and I learned a lot firsthand experience. What to do and what not to do on the type one diabetic side. So as as I got older, you know, probably about five years ago, I really wanted to start to find a way to give back to the type one community. I knew I had a lot of valuable experience that could really help others. So I set out trying to find a way to to make a difference in that community. You know, I started and stopped a whole bunch of different things where I kind of landed on Project InsulNation, which is a
3:43 Speaker 01 type one diabetic adventure business. You know, through a lot of soul searching and a lot of constructing of things that didn't fully align with what I really enjoyed and what I valued. I was able to land on this, you know, I love the outdoors, I love physical activity and I want to help the community. So why not put all three together? The whole purpose behind Project Insulation is to take type one diabetics out of their comfort zone. You know, the the people who are sitting back and scrolling through social media and liking all of the other type ones who are summiting mountains or doing four, five, six day backpacks through mountain ranges.
4:26 Speaker 01 Take those people, submerge them into an environment with type one diabetics who understand them and show them firsthand that they can do this too with the right support, with the right people around you and with just the comfort of knowing that you're not that outlier. The
4:48 Speaker 01 limiting beliefs and those barriers that you set upon yourselves just kind of melt away. So with Project Insulation, our whole purpose is to curate journeys like that for individuals to realize that they no longer have to live in a box and they are no longer alone. They can live a full, free, happy life with type one and we're here to show them.
5:13 Speaker 00 I love what you're up to. I love the way you're leading by example with it. It is one of the most powerful realities that have one of the most powerful visions I've seen in a long time, Chris. And we get to see some really cool stuff. So everything that we can do to support the process, I'm all in. I'm gonna, I'm gonna correlate a little bit to what we build with opportunities for Latinos. Because it's, it's something that I knew was very important for how we build this out. My, my story, you know, I'm just, I'm just a white dude from Texas. You know, like I don't have a story that they can relate to. So I knew how important it was to empower the first Latinos who came into opportunities and make sure that their story was the at the center of what we're doing because it's, it's the people who are in
5:57 Speaker 00 these third world countries, you know, or underprivileged countries as they're, they're called nowadays like that. They don't, they don't know how to have hope and, and believe in somebody who doesn't come from where they come from and what's there. But when I can show the story of Luisa jumping into podcasting six weeks after learning about digital marketing and doing an interview with. who had more than a million subscribers on his channel like that was a bigger interview than I had ever done in 14 years. Uh, and, and here she is, uh, stepping into executive behaviors, becoming a podcast host, learning how to be an executive assistant. And Tatiana's done the same and Cynthia's done the same and Daniela and Andres and beyond. And it's amazing how they can then rely on each other. Like you talked about, you get them together.
6:42 Speaker 00 And now they have the ability to relate to each other and help out. I want to come back and I want to learn a little bit more about type one diabetes, um, you know, what are some of the challenges that they're facing and what are some of these opportunities? That you're helping them dive into. You have a retreat that just got fully booked out. You had another one coming up. Um, and so it sounds like there's some great things on the horizon. We'll be right back and we'll dive right into it, Chris. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
7:24 Speaker 00 All right, guys. So we're going to dive right in with Chris and talk about this, this event again, a little bit more about type one diabetes and what people are facing in relation to that. And this event's already booked and, and sold out from May 29th through June 1st. Um, and White Mountains, Lincoln, New Hampshire. Tell me about the event. What, and, and how hard or easy was it to get this thing filled up? How many people are going? Everything you want to share, man.
7:49 Speaker 01 Awesome. So yeah, that's, uh, this is our, our first trip. Um, it's to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. There's a, a famous loop trail. It's about 42 miles. It's called the Pemigoasit Loop. Um, I picked out New Hampshire just because it's a, a little closer to where I am for the pilot trip. I kind of know the logistics. I kind of know the terrain. And I, you know, I, I just, I launched it. I sent it out. I blasted it all over social media. I put it into all the type one groups that would allow the posts and within forty eight hours, I had over thirty applications for seven spots. So I kinda, I kinda stepped back and was like, whoa, like I'm, I'm on to something here. Like people, people really need this.
8:33 Speaker 01 So, um, you know, I have an application process right now, just because we're so early in the business. We want to make sure that we're bringing the right type of people on the trip. Uh, that's not to mean or not to say that we're not going to expand into higher level and beginner level trips, but right now in the beginning to kind of find our footing. We're kind of going with the intermediate level, you know, people who have a little bit of outdoor experience, people who have a, the capabilities of managing their diabetes on their own in situations. Uh, and we're kind of using this first trip as a building block on how we want to curate the trips moving forward.
9:13 Speaker 01 Uh, I had just touched upon like beginner, intermediate and expert level trips. The, uh, the vision in the next two years is to have those three tiers. The beginning level tiers are for anyone and everyone, uh, who just wants to get outdoors, who wants to learn more about how to take care of their type one diabetes. And on those trips, they're going to be two or three day trips, you know, one or two night. Um, not as physically demanding and we're going to bring medical support on those trips. Um, endocrinologists, cardiologists, nurse practitioners, diabetes educators. And they're going to give campfire talks at night about different topics in type one and how to handle it along their level of expertise.
9:55 Speaker 01 Uh, the intermediate level trips are the ones that we're doing now. They're anywhere from three to six days. Uh, the second trip we're doing is the Tetons out in August. We're going to go for five days. And do the Teton Crest trip. That's about fifty miles we're going to do. And then expert level, we're looking, we're looking at twenty twenty eight, but it may be pushed to twenty twenty nine, logistics depending, but we plan on putting together an all type one diabetic team to Summit Denali in Alaska. So like your, your high level, high experiences.
10:31 Speaker 00 That's incredible. So these, uh, these trips I got, I gotta ask for those who are not type one diabetic. Is there a way to come on and support the trip in any way, where fashion?
10:42 Speaker 01 Um, I mean, there's, there's ways you can support. Definitely. You know, if the, the mission aligns with what you feel and you're called to it, there are ways to support us. Um, the, the trips themselves, as I alluded to, are all type one or medical professional because we want to keep that close knit, tight family feel on the trips. You know, most type ones who hike or hike in groups, you know, they feel like the oddball out. They don't want to stop and have to take them. And they don't want to stop and slow the group down because they have a low sugar. But when you put them with other type ones, five, six, seven other type ones,
11:23 Speaker 01 who they know deal with the same thing, you remove that stigma, you remove that hesitation from the equation.
11:29 Speaker 00 I love that. Okay. So visionary is listening in, right? It sounds, it might sound to some of you like Chris excluded me, but he's got a very good reason for doing so. I'm going to back this up with, with Priya Parker. Priya Parker is one of the leading experts on culture and building communities. And one of her greatest lessons regarding, so if you've got a community out there, uh, one of the greatest lessons she teaches is how we've got to have rules and boundaries. You've got to, you gotta have reasons to, to move people out and reasons for people to come in. And those boundaries help people with the safety factor and with the ability to feel like they belong to that reality. And so I can see very well how, what you just talked about, like if there's a bunch of people who don't relate to what you guys are doing,
12:14 Speaker 00 it, it's not too hard for those individuals to start to create a little bit of animosity, um, in the situation, um, or, or a bit of awkwardness and it creates a more pure experience. So that's, that's super awesome, Chris. Way to lean into that. As far as the, uh, providers, do the medical providers have to be type one diabetics or do they just need to, uh, treat type one diabetes?
12:37 Speaker 01 If they are type one, it would be, it would be a double whammy for us. It'd be great. But as long as their professional field is treating type ones, the level of knowledge and expertise that they bring into these campfire talks. Not only are they going to benefit the people on the trip, but as we had talked previously, you know, my partner has his own media and production company. So anyone involved, um, professional wise is going to have all of their stuff recorded. They can then use in their own respective offices.
13:10 Speaker 00 That's awesome.
13:11 Speaker 01 Instead of just playing any kind of generic type thing, you know, they have themselves in the situation with the group of people that they treat that they can now show in their office as their own kind of infomercial or whatever you want to call it.
13:26 Speaker 00 That's cool. And I could see how some medical professionals may have gotten into that profession based on a loved one. Um, you know, who may have suffered from some of this. So I, I, I love that that door is open a little bit there. Um. All right. One final question then related to that. If somebody is type one diabetic and they're used to doing things, maybe with the support of a parent, um, or a spouse, is there room for those people to be involved in the process? Um, you know, or is this a, an opportunity for them to say, you know what? Um, we want, we want a uniquely independent, um, experience. How are you guys going about that reality?
14:04 Speaker 01 So caretakers are welcome on the beginner level trips. The whole beginner level idea is to build that base confidence to then go out and do it on your own. So the beginner level trips will be caretakers and type ones. Intermediate or type ones, a little more challenging. And then obviously the expert level is the, the expert level stuff, the bucket list kind of things, but we don't want to exclude anyone. Who relies on a caretaker. We don't want to exclude anyone from financial hardships. We're working to build a inventory of gear that we can lend out to people. So here doesn't become a restrictive purpose for anyone either.
14:47 Speaker 01 We want to bring as many people as we can and submerge them in this environment where they can build that confidence to fully trust themselves to take care of their type one in any situation.
15:01 Speaker 00 Dude, you're being, you guys are being such responsible stewards with this process. You're, you're being frugal and pragmatic. You're leaning into like the ability to maximize the opportunity as well. Um, I, I love everything and we've talked a couple of times outside of this now. Um, and so I've just, Visionaries have gotten to see so much about what Chris is up to. Just, it almost mesmerizes me like, wow. Um, Chris, in terms of financial support on this, Visionaries, one of the greatest things that we can have is a, is an amazing treasury that we can capitalize on in order to expand the visions that we have. Um, how are you going about funding and, and are you guys taking contributions from people? Like, are, are you willing to accept contributions from people who are like, you know what, I, I can't do this?
15:44 Speaker 00 Or maybe you got somebody who's 80, 90s years old, they may be past the adventure level, but maybe they want to vicariously live through those and who, who can do it and sponsor the process. There's always of course, giving like scholarships for individuals who are, have the financial hardship reality. But there's also a ton of operational costs and leadership costs and, and growth costs. And you got systems you gotta maintain. So, um, how are you guys going about funding?
16:11 Speaker 01 It's a great question and you, you just touched on it with the, um, the sponsorship and scholarships. One of the biggest things that we are working to offer right now is scholarships because we, we understand that the burden of type one financially is huge. You know, for people to want to come on these trips, it's a big commitment. Um, we are currently in talks with a whole bunch of type one related businesses for partnerships, you know, brand partnerships, scholarships, sponsorships. Um, we
16:44 Speaker 01 Have started to open up the conversation to individuals, anyone who's interested. The only requirement that we have for anyone who is interested in investing with us is that they do it for the right purpose, that their values align with our values, that they want to see this grow into a movement, and it's not just a monetary investment. We, we want the right people involved from the bottom up, all the way across the board. You know, we, we've had people come to us already, who have offered some terms that we didn't like, and we could see kind of it was more of a, like investor payout kind of relationship.
17:27 Speaker 01 We didn't really want that. So we've, we've left that on the table, and that's probably one of the hardest things we've done. You know, being a startup, walking away from money, but walking away from money, it's going to be a headache down the road. I'd much rather do that and have the right people behind us. So now it's a whole lot of just networking, reaching out to companies and individuals who kind of
17:55 Speaker 01 correlate along the line of what we're doing, and they can relate to it.
17:59 Speaker 00 My friends, this has been an absolute masterclass on visionary leadership. Chris Room, you emulate that from head to toe, from start to finish. I've seen that from the very moment I met you. I'm really excited to see what's there. If you guys want to contribute to this, of course, you can reach out to Chris on LinkedIn. You can also go check out projectinsulnation.com and look at those trips. You can sign up to be part of the waitlist if you're able to be part of it. If you know of any medical professionals who could help out with the process, by all means, an introduction to something like that could mean a lot to Chris and to his community. And once again, if you are looking for a way to contribute and to give back,
18:39 Speaker 00 this would be an amazing opportunity to go and fund something that can help a lot of people maximize their life experiences, things that, that perhaps you and I have gotten to take for granted for most of our own lives. Chris, your story hits home about the reality. I cannot imagine. And what it would have been like to spend so many years being told no, um, you know, and to be having to to shut down your own desires and expectations and hopes and dreams of so many things. And now here you are being able to help more people fulfill what they never thought possible. I can't think of a cooler vision than that. Like that's right up there with the best of them. So thank you so much for being here. Any final words of wisdom? If this, if this was
19:15 Speaker 00 the last chance you had to share counsel or perhaps encouragement to other visionaries out there, what would it be?
19:29 Speaker 01 I would definitely say, take your time. Um, you know, rushing into trying to build something and not fully having the clarity on your vision and having that align with the values of who you are individually, you're going to run into a lot more problems. Um, you know, I, I kind of walked that line. So I'm speaking from experience, but when everything falls into place, when the clarity falls into place, the vision falls into place, and it all aligns with your values, the momentum is unstoppable. And that's kind of where I found the sweet spot.
20:05 Speaker 00 Huge. Vision pros, you heard it from founder and visionary Chris Room himself. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Let's get it done. See you guys later. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
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