HemoLife Podcast

Hemolife Podcast: One Month Recap & World Hemophilia Day

• L.A. Aguayo • Season 1 • Episode 7

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The Hemolife Podcast celebrates its one-month anniversary with reflections on World Hemophilia Day and the journey of creating an authentic platform for the bleeding disorders community. Host L.A. Aguayo shares insights on finding your voice, maintaining consistency despite lack of engagement, and the rewarding experiences of connecting with listeners at recent conferences.

• Quote of the day: "The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, and the leader adjusts the sails" - John Maxwell
• Finding your unique voice and message requires clarifying your vision and being intentional
• True impact comes from sharing personal experiences rather than regurgitating recently learned information
• The podcast has achieved 162 downloads, 153 new Instagram followers, and over 38,000 views in its first month
• Coming episodes include Carlin (hemophiliac bodybuilder) sharing fitness insights and Kali Sauter discussing women's advocacy
• Leadership in the bleeding disorders community means elevating others' voices, not just your own
• Focus on controlling what you can: exercise, nutrition, supplementation, and mindset

Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and share the podcast. Stay tuned for more amazing episodes covering personal development, mental health, physical health, fitness, nutrition, and breakthroughs in the community.


Thanks for tuning into the HemoLife Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs a spark of hope or encouragement. Follow us on Instagram @HemoLife_Podcast and YouTube for updates, guest highlights, and behind-the-scenes content. New episodes drop regularly—your story matters, and this is just the beginning.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Hemolife podcast your gateway to transformation and empowerment. Hosted by Elia Aguayo, we're diving deep into the world of rare disorders, unlocking the full spectrum of your potential. Each episode, join us as we connect with pioneers, wellness experts and true survivors. They're here to share powerful stories and invaluable insights, from mental resilience to physical health, community news to life-altering strategies. At Hemolife, we provide the tools you need to excel and inspire, prepare to elevate your life, learn, laugh and grow with us. Let's embark on this journey together.

Speaker 2:

Hey guys, good morning. Today is April 18th. It is the day after World Hemophilia Day, and I just want to say I'm super proud of the entire community for sharing your special messages yesterday. It's a very important day and you guys all stepped up and created so many cool posts advocating for the needs that you see fit. I know the main headline for yesterday was women and girls bleed too, and that is a topic that has been becoming very popular over the past few years. Women are trying to create more awareness about being diagnosed properly, about having access to the proper treatment that they need, and we're going to deep dive into that a little bit more. But I just want to say it was so cool seeing everyone making posts and just advocating. I think we have one of the most special communities there is out there.

Speaker 2:

Yesterday I made a post about World Hemophilia Day and essentially I just wanted to elicit thought, thought for change and thought for action. And that brings me to today's quote of the day. And today's quote of the day is by John Maxwell and it says the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change and the leader adjusts the sales. What I've learned growing up and being in the work world is that if you're going to come to somebody with a problem, you need to have a solution when you come to them with that problem as well. So I mean a lot of people from what I see. They just like to throw out complaints and wishes, you know, or maybe, like this quote says, the optimist who just expects things to change wishes you know, or maybe, like like this quote says, the optimist who just expects things to change. But we have to step up as individuals and we have to be the leader and and take those actions and you just have to be super intentional and super consistent. And with my post, it was more about how do you clarify your message, how do you clarify your vision and then, once you do and you know you're super intentional about finding out what your skillset is and how you can make improvements in the hemophilia community or the bleeding disorders community and you hone in on that and you trust it.

Speaker 2:

I had a few conversations yesterday with friends and I really see a lot of people struggling with their message and being certain and courageous about sharing that. A lot of times we will share a message a few times, or maybe we even do it for a few months and we're not getting the interactions or the engagement that we expect to get, or maybe even the approval. A lot of times we're looking for someone to tell us that we're right and to tell us that they're on our side. But you really don't need that. I've been on social media for 10 plus years, sharing my message and sharing my journey and being very vulnerable about everything that I've gone through in my life, and in the beginning I was the same exact way. You're looking for those likes. You're looking for the engagement, the comments, so that you feel good about what you're doing. But God gives everyone a very specific vision and you just have to be able to trust that vision and just wake up every single day and keep on building on it.

Speaker 2:

You know, one thing that I really focused on growing when I was posting on social media growing up was that you know, talk about your experiences, talk about personal things that have happened to you. You know what you were able to do and how you were able to overcome those things. A lot of people will hear educational material or self-development material. They'll learn about it in one day and then the next day they go out and they try to preach whatever they just learned. And that happens very easily because the information that you're learning, it resonates with you and you get super excited and then you want to go share it. So what I had to do was keep my head down, focus on my mission, focus on my vision, go through my own personal experiences and as I grew and implemented these things in my own life and proved whether or not the philosophy worked or not, then I would share it. And not only are you going to be able to share it, you're going to be able to do it at a high level because it's coming from personal experience. But either way, stay strong. Figure out what your craft is, figure out what your skill is, what it is that makes you special, your creativity and pair it up with your story, and just never stop sharing it, not just on World Hemophilia Day. But you have to be consistent. You have to do it every day, whether it's on social media, whether it's somebody you run into on an elevator. You have to be prepared to educate, inspire and share your message with other people. So that was a quote of the day. I really liked that one for yesterday's World Hemophilia Day and so on today's episode.

Speaker 2:

Basically, I just want to give you guys a one month recap. The Hemo Life podcast is officially at one month of operating and going and it's been a crazy ride so far. There's been so many ups and downs and things that I've had to learn, but it has already been really rewarding. I think we have close to eight episodes out already and I've had the opportunity to travel to two events. So I went to HFA and I went to the hemophilia B conference and it's just so crazy because, back to the topic of expecting engagement and interaction Well, I only got so much of that through posting, but whenever I went to these conferences, I can't tell you I can say at least 10 at HFA personal interactions from people that I've never met who wanted to tell me the impact that the podcast has had on their life already and how excited they are about it. They love the direction, they love that it's going to be raw and unfiltered and just realness and just deep diving into so many topics. Before I launched the podcast, I did a ton of research myself and try to get really creative about what topics we could talk about that would help other people. And it's crazy when you just dig into it a little bit and there's just so many untouched, untapped topics that we can talk about that are not just educational but entertaining. They're fun to talk about and sometimes it's a little edgy, but I think that's what our community needs. We need realness.

Speaker 2:

When I first started my journey, that was one of my big things was that I wasn't able to tell my story the way that I wanted to tell it, and when I kind of had a perspective of looking at where the industry was as a whole and how the community was as a whole, I started to see patterns.

Speaker 2:

I'm really really good at seeing patterns and seeing how people are reacting to these patterns and trying to have a pattern disrupt in there somewhere. And with my experience, I was sharing my bodybuilding journey and I was getting contacted by a lot of different pharmaceutical manufacturers to do talks, and I was super excited about that. I think everyone loves the opportunity to have a platform to share your story. When you share your story, not only are you helping other people, but you're also helping yourself and you're feeling a sense of purpose for being able to have that opportunity to do that. The negative side that I found was that I wasn't able to tell my full story Not every detail was okayed by the legal team and I just realized there was so much red tape. And then, when you start telling these scripted stories, you kind of just lose the genuine side of yourself.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I saw that and I decided that eventually I was going to stop doing scripted speeches and then if somebody wanted me to come talk to a community or to share my story, it was going to be more so on my terms, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. But I had to look at the long-term vision for myself and where I wanted to go in the community and what kind of leader I wanted to be and the amount of impact I wanted to have. And so I knew I kind of had to do my own thing, unless other people would be okay with me telling my raw real story, and that was like 10 years ago, whenever I was involved with that stuff.

Speaker 2:

I've had so many ups and downs. Since then, successes, tons of successes, tons of failures, and a lot of the failures have helped me to grow into who I am today and allowed me to be better positioned to help more people, and now that I'm in this position with the podcast, I really want to help more people, and now that I'm in this position with the podcast, I really want to help elevate others. I believe that true leadership is about lifting others up, and I just had to spend a lot of time filling up my cup first, so I feel like a lot of us. That's where we're at too, and it's not necessarily a right thing, but a lot of times, we feel like we have to fill up our own cup first before we can help other people. And what I have learned, though, is that even when you are at your worst, if you start, if you can put yourself to a side, to the side, for a little bit and focus on what you can do for other people, that will actually fill your cup up as well, but I'm guilty of that. I've taken months and months and months off isolating myself. But whenever I did the, whenever I did isolate myself, though I knew what that vision was. Still I never let that vision go. I knew I was going to come back and be even stronger and more powerful in my abilities to help other people. But this first month of the HEMA Life podcast has been amazing. The HFA event was really cool. Like I said, I got to meet a ton of people in person. I do a lot of talking on social media and it was just really cool to make those genuine connections. The podcast has been crazy and I think, as you guys watch, it's going to, it's going to continue to grow and I'm part of the reason of having this episode today is to have you guys just be a part of the journey.

Speaker 2:

I know it's not perfect right now. You know the lighting can be messed up, sometimes the camera goes out. There's times when the audio has gone out. In San Diego, I booked a private room and right before we were getting ready to launch the podcast, they started playing live music right outside the room. So it's just like man the devil is trying to bring this project down and I cannot let that happen. So we just kept on pushing through. You know there's editing. We can make that. You can use editing to make everything better.

Speaker 2:

I've had people come up to me and say that they wanted to start their own podcast as well. I love that. I really love that, and if anybody wants to reach out to me and they're interested in learning about things that I've learned so far, the mistakes I've made maybe I can help you out and get you launched even quicker and more efficiently. But all I know is that there's just a ton of change. Man, we are a special community. Know is that there's just a ton of change. Man, we are a special community. There's so many leaders out there and I think when you have a bleeding disorder, it's just something inside of us. That's one thing that we can be blessed about is there's a special spirit inside of us that just wants us to, that makes us want to give back to the community. Growth wise.

Speaker 2:

We've had 162 downloads so far, and that's on Spotify and Apple, so we've had that during the first month. I thought that was pretty impressive. It's actually better than what I thought, and a lot of times. So I even have a link in my Instagram bio and I have it on my personal page and I have it on the HEMA Live podcast page where you can click on the link and you can listen to the podcast there. And whenever you do listen to it there, it doesn't actually count as like a download. So downloads only happen on Apple and Spotify from what I'm aware of. So there's probably way more than that.

Speaker 2:

But you know a lot of us. When we first start our journey, we tell ourselves if I can help one person, then I've done my job. And that's the way I operated for so long was just one person at a time. And you know, one message at a time, one conversation at a time, one conversation at a time and then eventually, through being consistent, you can reach even more and more people. And then that's where you get to. And then you realize well, hey, if I want to reach more people, I have to build a different type of platform. My message is only going to resonate with so many people. But if I bring on other stories and elevate those people, then that makes me an even better leader and that provides more growth for more people who can, because their stories are going to connect with other people. You know when my story maybe wouldn't connect with them.

Speaker 2:

It's just an amazing thing when you start putting all the pieces together. It's just an amazing thing. In the beginning. It's like a you right, you're just worried about you, you, you, your attention, you know your reach. And then it becomes a very liberating feeling whenever you can just put all the pieces together and really realize what it takes to create change. So I'm not saying I've made it, I'm not there. I'm still hustling and grinding and spending hours and hours and hours trying to create content and do my thing and learn. There's just always so much to learn, which is really cool.

Speaker 2:

I think Instagram has been our biggest platform right now. I have started a TikTok page. There's a YouTube channel as well. I'm just not. The video quality hasn't really come out the way that I wanted to just yet, so haven't really pushed a YouTube channel yet. And then I have other people working on side projects as far as creating the intro pushed the YouTube channel yet. And then I have you know, I have other people working on side projects as far as creating the intro for the YouTube channel and the the intro was sent to me and I just wanted to make a few adjustments, but it's really cool. So it's a, it's a little bit of me, it's a little bit of all of you guys.

Speaker 2:

I asked for a bunch of you guys to submit your videos of you and your element. So we've got. You know, people playing soccer, bowling, racing motorcycles, you know fixing vehicles, like just you guys in your element. It was just. It's just so cool, like you know, little kids playing soccer. It's awesome to see. So I think it's going to be a really cool intro video once we get that launched and just highlights everyone.

Speaker 2:

So we've had 153 new followers on Instagram and the demographic so far is about 50, 50 male and female. We've created a ton of reels and just on Instagram alone we have 38,318 views, which I think is really really cool, and 1,326 interactions. So in one month, I'm super, super proud of what has been accomplished so far and I'm just excited to do even more. So during that first month, the very first episode was we had eight people on and that one was interesting. I think I was in over my head just a little bit, didn't realize how hard it would be, especially with technology failing and stuff and then trying to communicate with eight different people. The goal of that episode was to show you guys, you know what stories were coming and to kind of get a core group of people together, I ended up creating an Instagram group page with those core individuals and I wanted them to be our very first episodes, and that was the intention.

Speaker 2:

And then, as I was going through the process and doing a lot of traveling and just meeting new people and I've also had to be really strategic on how I wanted to to launch the content. You know, based off of each person's message, I wanted to add some variety. So I hope everyone has enjoyed what has been published thus far, and I just want to say, as we move forward, it's just going to get better and better and better, and the more engagement that I get from you guys, the better messaging I can put out there. And if you are interested in being on the list, right now we have a list of probably 20 different guests that want to be on the podcast, so I'm going to be really busy with that and then you know, I'll throw people in the middle just as things come along, based off of, you know, what message I believe needs to be shared during that time. But I always want to hear from you and so if you send me a direct message and you know I love to hear your story and to see where we can fit you in with the HEMA Live podcast.

Speaker 2:

This weekend Carlin is coming in from Houston, texas, and he is a severe A hemophiliac. I know his sister just had a baby and he you know he's a hemophiliac as well. So now he's an uncle. He gets to be in that leadership role as well, but Carlin's been stepping up for quite some time. Uncle, he gets to be in that leadership role as well, but Carlin's been stepping up for quite some time and he was a collegiate swimmer who transitioned into bodybuilding and I think he followed me or we followed each other a few years back and I know I was one of the very first individuals to step on a stage and to really really push back the bodybuilding competition lifestyle to a new level. And I'm getting to the tail end of my career as far as bodybuilding goes on a competitive level.

Speaker 2:

I still love the sport. I don't like competing as much and that's for a different difference, but I love being able to transform my body. It gives you a sense of control. Whenever we're born with hemophilia, we feel very limited and we feel like there's a lot of things that are out of our control. So it's really awesome to focus in on all the elements that we can control in our daily lives, which is exercise, nutrition, supplementation and your mindset. And I get obsessed with things. I have a very obsessive personality and so whenever I dive into something, I want to know how to be the best at everything, and so for a very long time, that's how I started out with bodybuilding, started out just competing, saying I wanted to step on a stage, but then I got super obsessed with what does it take to be at that next level? And that was the most amazing journey that I've ever been on, and it translates into everything in and it probably you know that's probably how a lot of different things work.

Speaker 2:

Doesn't matter what sport you're in, what career path you're in. You have to be the best at anything. There's gonna be a lot of very there's gonna be a lot of similar characteristics, behaviors and actions that are being taken, and that's kind of what I just realized in life, and so it's no matter what it is that you're getting into. I would highly recommend find somebody who is at the very top the 2% of that field and study them. Study their behaviors, their actions, their routines, how they treat people, how they carry themselves, and start implementing that into your life. Start believing in self-development, start believing that you're capable of more. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a long-term vision, but it's a really rewarding path to take.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, so Carlin will be coming in and he's flying into St Louis and we're going to be doing the podcast together, which I think is going to be a lot more fun. It's more realistic to do remote podcast episodes, but if they can fly in, then it's going to be even an even better episode, more personal. So I'm super excited for that. We're going to be trying to make this episode the ultimate fitness guide for hemophiliacs. So we're going to cover everything that we've learned in our careers and see if we can pass it on to you guys and help you elevate your lives in all of those areas. I'm telling you guys, you don't want to miss out on this. These are things that I've paid thousands and thousands of dollars for, to hire the best coaches around for a long period of time and basically we took that knowledge, applied it to a hemophiliac's life, made our own adjustments, found our own success in that avenue and now we get to share it with you, and help you A lot of this stuff.

Speaker 2:

It does need to be tailored, but you're still going to get a lot of amazing golden nuggets in this episode. So get ready, get excited for that. And then, after Carlin, we are going to have Kali Sauter on, and she is someone that I met through launching the podcast and she reached out because she's just super passionate about her advocacy journey for women and girls, and I just think it's super fitting. Yesterday we had World Hemophilia Day with the hot topic of women and girls bleed too. I think it's a perfect timing to have Kali on and have her share her journey, and it's going to be super enlightening for me. Like I said, I've just I don't know what women go through and their struggles are, and hopefully we can really pinpoint that and inspire people to kind of join her and her mission. But that is it for today's episode, guys.

Speaker 2:

I just wanted to give you a recap of the very first month and all the exciting things that are to come. Just thank you so much. I'm so grateful for everyone who's personally came up to me and thanked me for creating this and inspired me to keep on pushing forward and keep on doing what I'm doing. I love you guys, you know, spread the podcast If you can share it, talk about it with other people and let's just create something special here. I just think there's so much room here to help each other out to have fun.

Speaker 2:

You know, I don't want to just be all serious. You know we're going to have a lot of different segments coming up. The main segment is that you know you'll be seeing a lot of podcasts is going to be the clouding conversations and those will be those personal, one-on-one conversations. But I also want to be able to talk about hot topics, personal development as well and, just, you know, the mental health side, physical health side, fitness, nutrition, supplementation, breakthroughs. There's just so much that we could talk about and, you know, to create change. So stay tuned. There's going to be a lot of amazing episodes. Follow us on Instagram, youtube, share it. I love you guys. Have a good day.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning into the Hemo Life Podcast. Today's episode hopefully inspired you and have a good day a group of extraordinary achievers and pioneers. On behalf of LA Aguayo and the entire HEMO Life team, keep pushing forward, strive for excellence and remember you are the architect of your own destiny. Until next time, stay strong, stay inspired and continue on your path to an elite life. You.