We were lucky to catch up with Christel Oerum recently and have shared our conversation below.
Christel, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I’m not sure I’m inherently optimistic, but I do think that how we approach things can help foster positivity. How you approach life often will spill over to how you approach health, relationships, and your professional career. I generally believe people have good intentions and that I bring something to the table. Those two beliefs combined are the core foundation for my business, for how I build professional relationships, and for how I keep imposter syndrome at bay.
I also chose to build on success and perceive setbacks as learning opportunities rather than failures.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
The path to establishing Diabetes Strong wasn’t exactly linear. I was born in Denmark and moved to the US in 2009 with my husband and his work. I’d worked for a large pharmaceutical company in Denmark and continued my professional career in the US in consulting and medtech.
What had originally drawn me to a career in pharma/medtech was a type 1 diabetes diagnosis back in 1997. But although my diagnosis originally was what drew me to this field, I never shared my diagnosis broadly and generally considered it a private matter.
This all changed around 2015 when I started competing in bodybuilding competitions. I realized how challenging it was to exercise with insulin-dependent diabetes and I started documenting my learnings online.
My husband recognized how much value sharing gave me and ultimately how many others were looking for the same kind of information, and the idea of Diabetes Strong was born.
Today, we have turned that initial idea into a diabetes portal with expert contributors from all over the world supporting people living with any type of diabetes. We cover every question anyone living with (or just wanting to learn more about) diabetes might have.
The website is supported by a growing YouTube channel as well as peer support options on Instagram and Facebook.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
3 of the most important qualities to be successful at running a business like Diabetes Strong are: 1. Having a deep understanding of diabetes and having empathy for different people’s experiences living with the condition. Diabetes management will never be a one-size-fits-all. It’s a very hands-on condition, and there’s a high need for individualized care
2. Take risks and learn from experience. My husband and I knew next to nothing about running a website. We had to learn and we had to adjust everything from our messaging and branding to content strategy as we got a better understanding of what it meant to make Diabetes Strong successful
3. Willingness to adapt to a changing environment. Diabetes Strong gets most of its traffic from Google, so when the algorithm changes, we often have to change with it.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
As my husband and I work together, we use each other as sounding boards for new ideas. Many date nights have turned into strategy sessions as we’re both excited and passionate about continuously improving Diabetes Strong. We play off each other’s strengths: I can sometimes be a bit on the risk-adverse side whereas he often brings the big risky ideas to the table.
And when it comes to our content and to living with diabetes, I can bring a knowledge that he naturally can’t bring as he doesn’t live with diabetes.
We also look outside to other niches for learning, best practices, and inspiration as well as collaborate with other websites, content creators, and people living with diabetes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://diabetesstrong.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diabetesstrong_ig
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DiabetesStrong/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFitBlog
- Other: Our closed Facebook peer support group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FitWithDiabetesChallenge
