In this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS we discuss creating a brand and online courses in the health field with mind scientist Dr. Charles Parker from Core Brain Journal. Charles operates in the field of mind science. They discuss building a brand in the health world and operating in a new field of medicine.
Having a way to tailor your message to your market is an important aspect of branding your product or service, because branding comes down to a very personal level. One of the big takeaways is creating product specific branding, and Chris and Charles go into depth on that.
Charles shares his story of how he got into mind science. He tells how he developed his interest and shares the knowledge he has in mind science, and how it relates to selling courses. Charles lectured doctors in psychopharmacology nationally for 20 years. He has a podcast and has done blogging on WordPress.
Chris and Charles get into how courses in the health field help to enlighten the patient on the subject matter they are at the doctor’s office to discuss. This allows the patient to be able to spot signs and progression of their illness, because they have the knowledge they gained through the course. The courses also help the doctors to stay sharper and be more educated when creating diagnoses. Courses in the health field help strengthen the feedback loop between doctors and patients and close off the traditional methods of the doctors just telling the patients what to do, with that being the end of the conversation.
The health field is changing, because consumers have subject knowledge about their illnesses. The newer way of operating in the medical profession has health care professionals much more willing to listen to the patient, and building courses in the health field to help educate consumers is helping to push this process forward.
Effective communication is another key skill to course building. Often when course creators make content they use language and terms not familiar to the general audience. So knowing when and how to break down concepts to help the consumer learn and when to take shortcuts with terms and ideas is important.
There are many opportunities for health-minded entrepreneurs to come together and create content in the health field. Chris and Charles discuss some of these opportunities and which ones are currently prime for the picking. They talk about functional medicine and traditional medicine, and different course opportunities in those fields. Each of those fields have different challenges associated with them, and they highlight some of those as well.
To learn more about Dr. Charles Parker you can check out CoreBrainJournal.com, which is his podcast where he discusses topics in the medical field with other professionals.
You can post comments and subscribe to our newsletter for updates, developments, and future episodes of LMScast. Thank you for joining us.
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name is Chris Badgett, and today we have a special guest, Dr. Charles Parker. His website is CoreBrainJournal.com. He operates in the field of mind science, and I’m really excited to have Chuck on the show because I wanted to help those of you out there who are in health or medical-related fields, and you’re looking to get into this whole world of online courses, or building a brand, or just helping people through the internet. You may have a traditional medical role, or you may be operating in some new field, or inventing your own, and when you do that, all kinds of questions come up, but transforming health and society is just such a needed thing, and there’s all kinds of people doing interesting things around the world. I mean, there’s never been a better time for people to connect with people leading those changes in health and offering new perspectives, and methods, and that sort of thing.
First, Chuck, thank you for coming on the show.
Dr. Parker: Thank you, Chris. I really enjoy it. I’m looking forward to talking to you. I’ve admired your work so much. It’s a real privilege to be here.
Chris Badgett: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, tell us a little bit … Like, what’s the elevator pitch of who you are, what you do, and what on earth is mind science?
Dr. Parker: Well let’s start with this one easy thing. I think the first thing we have to do as kind of a branding question that you’re asking me, and I think people really have to begin, if they’re going to do any of these kind of things that would put them with LifterLMS, or anything virtual, they really have to have a brand. What we do in psychiatry, mental health, any kind of the sciences, we tend to think more about that patient in the office, and how we’re going to work on that mind, and that body, and do something effective in that hour, but we don’t really think about the larger picture of what we want to contribute in our lifetime, what we want to do with other human beings. What’s our purpose? Those larger questions are almost embarrassing to ask yourself, because you don’t want to think of yourself in that monolithic way. You want to think of yourself as a real person. It’s almost, if you think of a brand, you’re thinking of yourself as Ford or something like that, and you want to be a personal guy, so you don’t want to be Ford.
I think branding comes down on a very personal level for human beings, because they have to have a way to wrap themselves around your message. That’s the way to start. Like, you asked me the elevator [inaudible 00:02:38]. They have to be able to say, “Here’s what I do.” I’ll give you a quick run on it. I’m strongly of the opinion that the current psychiatric practice in the United States and the country, globally, and the world, is woefully limited. That we’re in fact involved in a psychiatric fashion show, and it’s a game of appearances, behavioral appearances, and the science is woefully overlooked. Sorry I used woefully twice.
If you think about it, I think we’re in a Galileo mind moment right now, and that is, you know, back in Galileo’s time, the apparatus, the tools that they were looking at was, “Hey, the sun appears to be rotating around Rome, and so that’s what it is. The sun’s rotating around Rome, and Rome is the center of the earth.” Then you got this little tool, and if you look at it on Wikipedia, it’s remarkably inefficient and small, but he says, “Look through this doggone thing. There’s a whole universe out there, guys, that we’re missing.” Well, the guy just before him was burned at the stake because he was interfering with belief, and he was in a way branding what needed to happen with science, and he became the founder of modern science by using technology to understand what was going on with brain function. I stand on the shoulders of Galileo. He’s not a personal friend of mine, but I think that his ideas are very strong, and they’re applied today because we have so many really interesting new technologies, new ways of looking at the mind, that are really almost argumentative with contemporary psychiatry.
If somebody says, “Well, Parker, are you a psychiatrist?” Well, I am by training, but I don’t like to really call myself a psychiatrist, because that brands me into a whole field of people who are thinking reductionistically, overly simplistically, chasing labels, and throwing meds at inadequate targets. Me, I’m a comprehensive guy, and the reason I’m comprehensive is because that’s a middle ground. This is a long elevator speech, but it’s a comprehensive ground between psychiatry, traditional psychiatry, which I’ve been for years, and lectured nationally for 20 years in traditional psychopharmacology, and functional medicine. What happens in functional medicine, you go to a functional medicine conference, and they all think psychiatrists are full of it and idiots. They all say very negative things about psychiatry. “You know, those people can’t find a bean in a …” Whatever. You go to a traditional meeting, and they think, “Oh, there’s people talking about IGG, immunoglobulin, GE food sensitivities. Total flakes. They have no idea.” I’m between those two. I have my feet in both of those, because a lot of people in functional medicine aren’t that way. They’re into comprehensive thinking.
Then there are increasingly … I was at an American Psychiatric Association meeting about a year ago, and I was really pleased to hear them very frequently speaking about things like immune system dysregulation, metabolic impediments to the way medications are managed, and I think that my brand then, the way I’ve settled on my brand, which is the different brand, it’s an innovative brand, is I’m just going to be comprehensive, and I’m not going to do anything to anybody, for anybody, without data. I am absolutely against guesswork. I’m for data, and I’m going to do data until the cows come home, and I would train you. Like, let’s say if you were my patient, Chris, what I would tell you at an initial interview, I’m training you right off the bat to correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m going to listen to you. If I don’t get it right, you have to tell me I’m wrong, because the only way I earn any credibility is by getting it right, and I can’t know that it’s right or wrong unless you tell me it’s wrong, and I’m gonna do what I can to inform you, so you might have a guess about from your perspective why you think it’s wrong. That’s a long way of saying it, but that’s how I eventually thought about my brand, after not thinking about it correctly for a long time. I’ve been searching for it for many years.
Chris Badgett: That’s really awesome. I really appreciate you bringing that to light, and I think that’s one of the reasons we get along so famously, and probably the listener out there is probably really excited, because we’re both … I’m kind of in the part where I’m disrupting education, and I’m not just disrupting for the sake of disrupting. I just see a bigger … There’s more options out there. There’s more things that can be put together. There’s a more holistic way of doing things, and connecting people and ideas. Doing that in the health care field makes sense, so we’re in alignment there.
Dr. Parker: Absolutely.
Chris Badgett: I think the mind science and that branding is really helpful. That’s really helpful and almost … This is the beginning of the interview, but I’m going to already go ahead and say that’s the big takeaway, because when you create a category, I don’t know if you created that word or not, but if you don’t have a way to describe what you do, and who you help, and in a way that people can really attach to, it’s either going to repel them or really attract them. That’s part of building your tribe. Otherwise, you’re just a needle in the haystack, and not everybody has to create a new category or something entirely new. You can just be the best at what you already do, but if you’re doing things a little differently, spending some time early on thinking about that category or what fields you’re integrating into one is a really great exercise.
My next question for you just has to do with, just give us the spread of what you do. Because I get the sense that you’re kind of a prolific guy. What I’m asking is, what kind of stuff do you do? Do you see patients? What have you done in your life? Do you see patients one-on-one? Do you still do that? Did you used to do that? I know you create content. You connect with other leaders in the field. You’re getting into courses. You have podcasts. Tell us all the kind of stuff you do, the layers.
Dr. Parker: I’ll do it quickly. To me it’s interesting, because I’ve had some pain along the way. I’ve had some bounces, and I think what happens for anybody out there, they have to look at, as Jocko Willink says in his podcast … Are you familiar with the Jocko podcast?
Chris Badgett: Yes.
Dr. Parker: He’s got this thing in there where a guy who’s been victimized or hurt comes in and he says, “I know what you’re gonna tell me when I tell you this.” And Jocko says, “Good.”
Chris Badgett: “Good.” Yup.
Dr. Parker: Then the guy says whatever it is, and Jocko says, “Good.” Because he’s actually saying, “You’ve got to reconceptualize what you’re doing, because the way you were thinking about it was limited. That is what happened to me. I was very interested from college years in psychoanalysis. I got interested in Freud when I read The Interpretation of Dreams when I was in college. My mother was a physician, so I said, “You know, I don’t really want to go out and deliver babies all day every day,” and I just love the intellectual stimulation that was associated with Freud, the mind science guy. I got into psychiatry, and I won’t tell you the whole story, but to make a long story short, I got very interested in psychoanalysis, and was trained by some of the best people in the country on psychoanalysis when it was the thing to do. My early years, I took seven additional years of thousands of dollars, studying psychoanalysis. I don’t consider a penny of it wasted.
Do I do psychoanalysis now? No. I paid a lot for a very remarkable experience with remarkable people. One of my training guys was the president of the American Psychoanalytic Association. I had some players that were serious, serious players, and they held my feet to the fire on the situation. I was in training with some serious, serious trainers, and it was very good. But what I ultimately found was the limitations of psychoanalysis in my everyday life with the people I was working with, because it was too lost in the imagination. I went to a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and I’ll never forget, we were in like, whatever, the 10th floor up there, and the guys were all in black outfits, smoking cigars and pipes, all had beers. I was dressed a little too … You know, I had the coat [inaudible 00:11:22]. You know, I was looking a little bit too waspy, and they said, “We’re going to discuss now the subfunctions of the superego and how they talk to each other.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh. What am I doing here?”
Anyway, to make a long story short, I got out of psychoanalysis. I realized that I didn’t know anything about hospital psychiatry. Well, hospital psychiatry was just undergoing a marked renovation. I got all involved with that. I spent years doing that. Had some interesting and troublesome experiences there, because people were doing it differently than I thought it should be done. But again, that tightened me up. “I’ve got to do this right.” Then I actually improved that whole thing. Wound up consulting nationally for addiction medicine programs in a number of places. But then I was going along and I thought, you know, I was enjoying what I was going with psychopharmacology. I started lecturing. Every one of these was an attempt to understand the science better. Psychoanalysis was the best science. Hospital psychiatry, that whole science of group management, best science.
Then I got interested in psychopharmacology. It was the days of Prozac came out. It was like, “Oh my gosh. This is unbelievable.” We were using Elavil and Stelazine and working in a state hospital, and we had people … You know, I won’t get into the graphics, but seriously ill people. I was like, “Here’s a promise. If I know something about psychopharmacology, I’ll be able to do very well with this.” I trained and trained and trained, and wound up doing well with it, and as I said, I lectured nationally for 20 years. The good thing about that is they trained you with the best guys in the country every year, so you didn’t go out there and screw up. They want you to say it right, you know? What I found there was quite interestingly that even though I was doing what I understood psychopharmacologically should work, I’m in my office with a person who’s highly motivated and wants to get well, I like them, they like me, there’s no weird transferential or anything going on in terms of a bad relationship, but guess what? They’re a treatment failure on my watch, and I’m supposed to be an expert, and I’m lecturing nationally.
I said, “Okay. I’ve got to do something else.” Then I called Dan Amen out in California. Amen is the guy that’s written the book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. He’s got one of the big TED things, and talks about thousands of brain scans. I called Dr. Amen. I said, “Look, you need an office on the east coast, and I’m your man. I’ve been talking for a while nationally.” I went out and gave a presentation that he attended out in Newport Beach, and he decided that I knew what I was talking about and we started an office in DC, in [inaudible 00:14:08]. That was a privilege for me. It took me to another level. Again, another investigatory level of what’s going on in science, and then I realized where he was, and that was he was limited by his technology. He was going to stay with that technology, and I could see just in that brief period of time with him, and I’m grateful for it. I’m not running him down, but I mean, he had a lot invested in that technology, and that’s where he was going to stay. I could see that I was not going to grow anywhere there because in DC there were a lot of innovative functional medicine people.
Then I go, “Okay, well I’ll just go on out.” I really got very involved in functional medicine for a while. The upshot of this whole thing, I did all kinds of different testing until I finally rested with a new group of various tester people, but in the process, this gets around to the point. In the process, I had to find myself in each new reality. I had to identify who I was vis-a-vis that new reality. Was I making a difference in people’s lives, or was I somehow a treatment failure? Now, I was not really a treatment failure in terms of what I was telling the patients. I was helping them out. I could go in and read a brain scan and tell them about their arguments with their wife that they had not told me about. I got good at that, and then I got good at looking at laboratory results and saying, “This is probably what happens on Saturday afternoon.” Just looking through the lab results, I said, “Oh my god. That’s what it is.” But all of that didn’t really make me satisfied, so I left brain imaging and got more into molecular and cellular physiology, and that’s the future of psychiatry right now.
Now tomorrow, somebody could say, “Hey, Parker. You don’t know about …” Whatever. I just had a great interview on my podcast with a person who was really great. She was trained at Harvard and Yale on brain-derived neurotropic factor, which is brain fertilizer, for regrowing brain cells. It was such an interesting interview, and what was fun for me is she’s teaching me about BDNF and now BDNF can be enhanced to prevent Alzheimer’s through exercised. I had heard about it from its relationship with the microbiome. What I do with every one of these really cool interviews that I have with people is I wind up learning more, so I can see myself never stopping that business, because it’s a great opportunity for me, and then because I’m interested in what they’re doing, I give them an opportunity to talk to whomever, and they’re all pleased with what happens, and of course I’m learning from them.
Then along comes this guy named Chris Badgett, and I’m looking at him, and I’m thinking, “You know, this whole teaching thing is so much me, but I’ve never been able to find a format for it. I’ve never been able to actually put it in a package that the average person on the street … And Chris, remember this. For so long, I was really doing the B2B discussions. I was talking to the docs. Now, yes, I would talk to the patients, but my whole mission was lecturing docs. Thousands of docs, for 20 years, all over the country. I wasn’t talking B2C. I wasn’t talking to the customer. But this podcast has helped me talk to the customer, and that’s the transition to the actual training, because in talking to the customer, I realized through actually using other individuals that I do have a brand, and the brand is that process. That B is not talking to C, and I’m going to do everything I can in my remaining years to get B to talk to C, because if B is talking to C, C is going to walk in that office totally informed. They’re going to have an idea what they want to do, and there will be no if, and, or buts about it, and, “If you can’t do it, I’m going to find somebody that can, because I’m trained. I’m actually trained more than you are.”
I think that’s the way it should be, because I think as me as a professional, if somebody came in and said that to me, I’d say, “Let’s work together. This sounds great.” I think the average person, like, no, I can’t work with, because they’d be intimidated. Now, I think it’s changing. I’m not saying that everybody’s insecure like that, but there’s still an evolution that’s taking place regarding that participatory medicine relationship, and that horizontal respect for that person in the room, and really training them so that they can come back and really tell you what’s actually going on based on that science that you’ve taught them in the first place. That’s the long way around it, but that’s kind of what’s going on.
Chris Badgett: That’s good. That’s very good. I have some points to dig into with you. How long ago was the microbiome discovered? Do you know?
Dr. Parker: A long time ago, but they only recognized its importance recently, like in the last 10 years or so. I’ve got a tremendous podcast by this guy who says that Darwin was all wet because he didn’t understand the evolution and the real value of the microbiome in human evolution. He has a whole thing on meta-Darwinism, and he says, “Darwin’s out the window.” Because the way it actually happened, it wasn’t survival of the fittest by any means. It was the microbiome communicating effectively with each other that made the whole thing happen.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I would love to dig into that with you one day, but one of the reasons I bring that up is, especially now with how accessible information is and people, things change really fast. Could you give us some perspective for … How long has your medical career been that we’ve been discussing it? How much time has passed here?
Dr. Parker: 45 years. I’m 75. Yeah. I would say that the time between the brain scan, I did the brain scans from ’03 to ’07, four years, but those next 10 years is where I’ve just really been very busy, and thinking through who I am, and figuring out what my brand, who I am as a person for people that I’m talking to, and what I really want to teach. I mean, if a person is going to be talking to you and they want to do something with LifterLMS, they have a mission. They have a message. But what they do frequently, I don’t know if this is true for you, but I’ve noticed this in the podcast that I have, they don’t really rebrand themselves, or actually, pardon me. Initially brand themselves adequately, when they have a great opportunity to share a message with me. I think it’s remarkable that I’ve had 57,000 downloads in 86 countries, in less than a year.
Chris Badgett: And that’s your podcast you’re talking about now?
Dr. Parker: Yeah. That’s the podcast. I mean, to me that’s amazing, but if I were to come onto a podcast and had that kind of success, I’d want to have a pitch.
Chris Badgett: Right.
Dr. Parker: I want to know what the heck I’m talking about. Listen, I would say to you, Chris, “This is the deal, buddy.”
Chris Badgett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Parker: “We’ve got to get this out.” But that’s only happened for me in like the last 10 years, because I’ve been … I think the thing that really helped me there was working on WordPress. WordPress, I started WordPress blogging right after I left Amen in ’07, so I’ve been doing that for a solid 10 years. I actually realized I wrote 46 … Pardon me. 460 posts. I slipped on that, but 460 posts. A lot of posts, a lot of opinion, and I realized that we were very busy. We had a very big list. I mean, for me it’s a big list. You know, it’s not John Lee Dumas’ list by any means, but it’s a list for me, because I’ve got thousands of people that listen to me when I hit that button.
Chris Badgett: Yeah.
Dr. Parker: I feel that’s a big responsibility. If I’m going to send something out, I’m going to be doggone careful about what I send out, because somebody’s going to use that down the road, and if I have somebody cross a little bit of a line in terms of talking to me, I’m going to get a clarification on that right now, because those listeners are out there wondering what the heck is going on. Anyway … Go ahead. Sorry.
Chris Badgett: I want to get into a little bit more of just your personal story. Like you mentioned, you kind of touched on legacy a little bit, and your mission, and what you really want to do, and really help people, and admit when things are broken. What is the driving … Where does your “why” come from? Why have you been so open to being a lifelong learner and just made this commitment to challenge assumptions, middle models, absorb new material as it arises in the field, and from practice? Like, where does this energy come from?
Dr. Parker: I can tell you something humorous, and it’s probably yes or no, and then I can tell you something real. The humorous thing is, I was reading. I have no idea why I got onto this book, but I’m an Aquarius. My birthday is on Groundhog’s Day. You read anything about Aquarians, and this is exactly my personality. You know, “They want to change the world. They want to do it.” Part of it is my birth order, in some kind of cosmic way. I’ll accept that. I’m not going to argue with that because it’s definitely been my deal. I think the other thing is, I had a great admiration for my mother. My mother was a family practitioner, and she had … We moved around quite a bit when I was a kid. My dad was in the military. He flew AT-6s and T-33 jets down in Malden Air Force Base. Then he was in the Navy during World War II. He was an aerographer’s mate out in the Atlantic on an aircraft carrier. Aerographer’s mate is a weather predictor.
Moving around a great deal as a child, I had the … Really, it was somewhat difficult as a kid, but I had an opportunity to meet a lot of different people, in a lot of different circumstances, and have to make adjustments to different schools. Then we also had the issue of, my father was an itinerant driver. We’d get in the car and we’d pack up from St. Louis or Dexter, Missouri, and we’d head down to Mexico. We’d go down, before Mexico even became a place to go, we’d go down to Mexico, because we could afford to go down there, and we would stay down in Tampico. We’d go to Mexico City, Guadelajara, and we’d hang out. That diversification of being on the road and meeting other people was definitely seductive for me. I mean, I just love it, and I loved it when I was out there doing the training.
I think the thing is, is it came to me, I liked just people. I just liked hanging out with people and having the experience of sharing things and growing together. It isn’t me doing something to them, and this is where I synergize with Danny [Aine 00:25:10]. He’s like, “This isn’t a one-shot deal where you’re training somebody. This is a mutuality thing that’s taking place here, and if you really conduct yourself appropriately, it’s a great opportunity for you to learn as well as to share.” Somewhere in there, I got off on that whole process, because I wind up … I love learning. It’s not me teaching. It’s my opportunity to learn, and so that’s really the end of it.
Chris Badgett: That’s cool, and I can definitely relate to that. I’ve had a lot of international experiences all over the world, and I was actually … I’m not a computer scientist or a business … I wasn’t trained in business, or technology, or marketing or anything like that. I’m an anthropologist, so I was trained in sustainable development and cultural anthropology. That’s what my degree is in. But I forget who said it. I think it was like Margaret Mead or somebody like that who said that you don’t perceive your own culture except from the context of another. When I was living in Nepal, or living in Honduras, or Peru, or traveling to Alaska, being in native villages, all these things, you start to become more aware of all the mental models and assumptions that are in place, in the place you came from, just because it has this wildly different perspective.
Dr. Parker: That’s right. That’s a good point. Very good point.
Chris Badgett: I appreciate what you’re saying there. The other piece in your story is just that entrepreneur drive to like see value and to challenge assumptions. It just seems like you’re just really open to that, and I think a lot of people get that wrong. The thing about creating value, like, “Oh, what’s this worth?” Or whatever. “How much can I charge? What’s my pricing?” But the real value is like helping the patient or the customer, like you’re talking about. If you’re helping … If you’re going B2B, business to business, the real value when you help that business is helping them help their customers.
Dr. Parker: That’s true.
Chris Badgett: That’s what it’s all about. Then just also, just that commitment to write blog posts and then create podcasts, I mean, that’s it. I mean, I’m up at, right now, somewhere around 150 podcasts. In my life, I’ve probably … I’m not as far as you. I’ve maybe done 200, 300 blog posts? I don’t know, but it’s just a commitment, and it’s a way to work out ideas, and it’s a powerful habit. I want to get into a question I get a lot from people who are in the health-related field, and this isn’t … Just disclaimer here. This isn’t medical advice, legal advice, or financial advice. We’re just sharing our experience. What does … In your experience, I think if you’re doing something online, especially in a teaching role where you’re taking money, how do you do that, in your experience, while staying above board and legal? Let’s say perhaps you’re juggling both. Perhaps you have patients in the office, you play by one set of rules, and then maybe you get a client, somebody you’re consulting online, or you’re interviewing somebody on your podcast, or you’re pushing out content. Where can people get into trouble, and how do you navigate those waters of legality, in your experience as a health care professional?
Dr. Parker: That’s a great question. I think the biggest problem there, one that I scrupulously avoid, is being categorically opinionated. Being so right. “This is what you must do, and if you do anything else, you’re going to be completely crazy. I’m telling you right now, do this.” I don’t think categorically anyway. I’ll tell you one thing. For you and your listeners, an absolute important book. You may have read it already. You sound like you have, but it’s the Alfred Korzybski Science and Sanity. That particular book changed my life. I should have mentioned it earlier, because I had a guy give me that when I was in internship in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A guy who you would never think would be passing on a really important piece of information. He had a Mark IV red Lincoln Continental. He wore green golf pants and a plaid jacket, and he had a pompadour hairdo, and he looked like Elvis Presley, and he was an internist. He was like a ladies’ man. He was flirting with the girls, but he was a good doctor. He’d come in the emergency room at two in the morning, and we’d be working on somebody, he knew what he was doing. But he just looked so plastic.
He said, “Parker, well I understand that you’ve written some poetry, and the way you think about things, I want to have a cup of coffee with you and talk about this person.” We went down, had a cup of coffee, and Korzybski had lived in his residence in Chicago in some apartment complex, and Korzybski lived a few either above or below him or whatever. He says, “This guy is unbelievable, and you would like him.” I read the book, and it was completely life-changing, because Korzybski’s whole pitch is that if we think reductionistically, we’re developmentally arrested. His whole thing is the field theory of general semantics, and the non-heuristity in field theory in general semantics. He says, “Aristotle started us going down the wrong path with labels, and we’re still stuck in it thousands of years later.”
Anyway, I got a little lost on that point, but I think the other thing is, back to what was occurring to me while you were talking, as I was thinking a little more deeply about the implications of what you were saying, and I think the other thing that a guy like you and a guy like me does this for is because it’s not necessarily … There’s a selfish motive. You do want to be constructive in the lives of other people. I definitely have a drive to do that, and I know you do as well, but there’s an innate curiosity that is … I’m just so curious, and I just don’t care. If I don’t know it, and it’s the least bit interesting to me, I’m gonna chase it down. That’s why I’ve been in all these other things. Then that’s satisfying to me to have a little greater sense of my own relationship with the order, with the natural order of things. “Okay, well, I can feel a little more comfortable about that.” You know? “I’ve got brain scans in my back pocket. I can talk about that,” metaphorically speaking.
Listening to your podcast, you have such a good understanding of training modules, and training tools, and so on. That’s been a curiosity for you, and you’ve obviously mastered it. I think the people that were listening to us, they need to say, “What is it that I really not only am doing, but what do I want to master? Who do I really seek to be in the branding? It’s not who I am, but where am I really, truly going?” That’s a different thing than an arrested … An arrested person says, “Who am I?” A person who’s in development says, “Where am I going to go? Where do I want to take myself? What am I most curious about?” Then that’s their brand. Because it doesn’t have to be that they have to be there. It’s that they’re going there and they’re determined to go there, and everything else makes sense after that. They will model that for others, because they’ll be a little ahead of somebody that wants to listen to where they are, who’s also on a curious trip, and they’ll have some fun with it because they enjoy that particular thing. Now, I found that with fly fishing for example. I was gonna do fly fishing before I got into brain scans.
Chris Badgett: Right.
Dr. Parker: I actually started writing. I was going to be an outdoor writer, because I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Fly fishing is enormously interesting. I mean, the layers, the fish, the flies, the etymology, the whole thing. I’m into bugs and collecting bugs anyway. I think that’s an example. I could use that as a brand if I wanted to, and seriously considered doing it. “Okay. I’ll be a psychiatrist who has a brand that where we go fly fishing, I’ll teach them about, through fly fishing, how to actually understand mind science.” That’s a little arcane, but anyway, I’m trying to put the two things together. That’s a little bit of another thought about the way to consider branding.
Chris Badgett: That’s really good. That’s really good. What about if there’s like some kind of governing body that you have to do continuing education for, or just like the American Medical Association, or avoiding … There’s certain things you can do in your office that you wouldn’t do online, or the worst thing you would want is some kind of malpractice suit, or something like that. In your opinion, how should a new person who’s thinking about adding value online navigate the waters of the legality or what their governing institution controls are?
Dr. Parker: Sorry. You kind of asked that before, and I got carried away with the other answer. The issue is really, in my mind, simple. That is not being too definitive in your answer, and always deferring to whoever their medical professionals are that they’re working with. If anybody gets on my YouTube channel and looks at the questions, then I refer them … A lot of times, I love Pretty Links, so I’ve got all my key playlists on a Pretty Link. I can just drop the Pretty Link in an answer and say, “Look, you’re having this kind of a problem and you just need to look at this series of videos, and out of that, you’re going to get some training and you’ll have a better idea of what to do next.” As opposed to me saying, “I know you as a person, and you probably have a bowel problem, and it’s messing with your meds.” I would state it in more general terms. You know, “It’s very likely there’s a metabolic impediment based on what you’re saying, and without correcting the metabolic impediment …” Which you have to measure the correct, you can’t just throw something at it. “Then with that metabolic impediment, you won’t be able to correct it, or you will be very difficult to correct.”
Now, that’s a general statement that has some higher degree of specificity without being completely specific. My thing, as a medical professional, is I don’t say anything specifically unless I have some data, and even with the data, I always say, “Sometimes the implication would be that this is a very likely …” But I never say, “That means that.” You know? I think that all we have to do is dance around a little bit and be supportive, but they’re looking for some direction rather than no direction.
Chris Badgett: Do you often say things like, “And, you know, do all this in consultation with your doctor?”
Dr. Parker: Yeah. I do. I’ll put a link to … They can consult with me. I mean, if you want to talk about it, I’d be happy to talk about it, but I always make it clear, you know, “If you’re consulting with me, I don’t really write for meds across state lines. I’m licensed in the state of Virginia, but you have to get somebody down in Texas to …” And then we get on the phone, I say, “Listen, I have a patient right now that I’ve been seeing on Zoom in Texas for … I don’t know. Probably eight years now, and she’s doing very, very well.” And the way it’s all worked is her pediatrician and I get along very well. I send the pediatrician a note. The pediatrician pretty well does what I say, unless they disagree. We go back and forth, but we manage it with due respect for the medical team that’s licensed and professionally hooked up in that particular state, so I’m not practicing medicine across state lines. Now, I think medicines are much more important to be careful about. You just absolutely don’t break that rule under any circumstances.
However, regarding supplements, if somebody comes in, you know, there’s no real control on supplements. I’m not taking a medical authority over if I said, “Give this a shot. Get back to me, and we’ll measure the results.” I don’t write for supplements unless I have a measurable target that I’m shooting at. It’s not like, “Hey, people do well when they take omega-3 fatty acids because it works.” I never say anything in a general term like that. My safety is being extremely precise and data-driven. Then I think anybody should do that. If you’re saying this, there are … And I think for example, psychologists talking about depression. Well, there are several ways to look at that question. Here’s one, here’s one, here’s one. “This requires that. This requires that.” Then the person is completely safe, because they’re not really taking an authoritative position with that particular presentation. They’re just trying to pitch in in the larger conversation somehow.
Chris Badgett: That’s really good. I appreciate you sharing your experience there around navigating those waters. What’s an example, if you’re comfortable sharing, like what kind of courses … I mean, you’re obviously an expert. You’ve been a speaker, a lecturer, and you’ve had patients of your own, B2B, and with the angle of really helping the end patient, and you’re a prolific content creator. When the online courses come into the mix, what’s the goal with those? Like, how do they-
Dr. Parker: I’ve had so many. It’s kind of ridiculous, because I’m having ideas about this all the time. I’m sure the people you work with are the same way. Like, “Oh my gosh. I have to nail one foot to the floor.” But it’s going to be easy for me to start with ADD. ADD medications, because it’s such a complete … You know, it’s terrible what’s going on out there. People are being treated inaccurately, inappropriately, misdiagnosed. I’m going to have a course where it’s going to do that, because it’s an easy way for me to start, because I’ve done videos, and coursework, and PowerPoints. I’ve got all that stuff. It’s just a question of organizing it into a course thing, and I’ve actually thought of two things in that regard, Chris. One would be having something just for patients so that they could take it and have a very clear idea of what they wanted to talk to their medical professional about, and that medical professional is increasingly nurse practitioners. Then I’m going to have another course for nurse practitioners and doctors, because the doctors I know from speaking with them, need some brushing up.
Now, when I was on the road, we brushed up a lot of people. We helped a lot of people think about it. There’s been a big kibosh thrown on medical speaking, so [inaudible 00:40:10], that’s in a way, it’s a benefit for me, because there are people who want to do it. They just don’t want to pay any money for it. They want dinner bought. “Buy me dinner, and you can teach me.” Well, I say if you want to learn, let’s get together and do it. I think ADD is an easy one, but I have all kinds of other ideas. It’s amazing, because if you look at what’s going on … I mean, I could talk about relationships until the cows come home.
You know, when I worked in addiction medicine, the whole word “codependency” was a … Codependency is as bad as ADD. It’s another word that goes nowhere. The whole concept of codependency if I were married to my wife, and I was an alcoholic, and she would be a codependent, because she’s codependent on alcohol with me. No, that’s not what the problem is. She’s dependent on me, and alcohol happens to be the problem, but she’s dependent on me. She’s not codependent on alcohol. She didn’t care about alcohol. The codependency is a misnomer in the first place, and then to say that someone is codependent, it almost has a gender-specific application, which is totally incorrect. I had full-on heroin addicts come in. I had a guy come in, he was going to prison for a three-state heroin operation. Very cool dude. Came in in his Mercedes. He’s getting ready to go to prison, federal prison, and he was a very cool dude. He was a lot of fun to talk to. He says, “Yeah, my wife gets the car.” The whole thing, and this and that, and the other thing. I said, “You know what you are, buddy? You got a big problem.” He says, “What?” I said, “You’re a codependent.” I’m messing with him, because he could probably … On the street he would have killed me, you know?
Chris Badgett: Right.
Dr. Parker: But he didn’t have the weapon, I don’t think, at the time. He got the joke. Because I said, “Look, you wanted to keep everybody happy, but you weren’t taking care of yourself, buddy.” He definitely got it, but that was not the cure, but it was something hopefully constructive for him. Again, we’re in the labels, and we’re into reductionistic thinking. I could do something on that as well. It would be fun.
Chris Badgett: Well, you know, the internet is just not that old. What it does, like what it did to bookstores, is it created unlimited shelf space, so you can have all these niches that couldn’t be in the Barnes and Noble or the small local book shop. Really there’s all this opportunity for niche content and niche ideas, and if we look at something like ADD for a second, and the thing with this, the websites and podcasts, like I can’t wait until cars just pull the whole radio out and just let me do podcasts in the car. I know it already exists. I just don’t have that kind of car, but that’s personalized, you know? There may be only 60,000 people in the world who care about what Chris says on LMSCast, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind being able to turn it on easily in the car without using their phone or something.
Dr. Parker: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Chris Badgett: I guess my point is with this connection and the way people can now kind of do a lot of their own research, they’re becoming less … We’re talking about dependency. A little less dependent on the doctor, to like, “Tell me how it is.” People are going into rooms with doctors being well-versed in how cancer works and whatever is going on. Like, they’ve read the books. They’ve been to the blogs. They’ve listened to the podcasts. They’ve watched the YouTube videos. Just to bring it home for us, if you make a course about ADD, what does that do versus if they go, if they take their child or whatever to a psychologist? Where do the two pieces sit? Like, how are they different?
Dr. Parker: Okay, well let me address the first one and then the second one. The first one is, and we do this already. For example, my playlist at YouTube, I’ve got a playlist with all the specific playlists on it. I say, “Look, you just need to go look at this and read it, because if you do this, when you come back you’re going to be an informed consumer and we’ll be able to talk about this. But if you’re leaving, you can tell the chairman of the department of psychiatry at Harvard, ‘This is the way the stuff should be working, and it’s not working for me this way.’ And if he’s illuminated, god bless him. If he’s not, he’s wrong.” I’m that opinionated about it, okay? What happens is, I want them to have a constructive experience with whoever they’re with. Yeah, I’d like them to see me. That’s fine, but that’s not scalable.
Chris Badgett: Right.
Dr. Parker: What’s scalable is helping them have a good relationship with their doc, because if they have a good relationship with their doc, the doc is going to say to the next patient, “You know, you need to see this thing here, because this is going to be helpful. If you did that, it’s going to help me out.” Well, I just spend a couple bucks on it and get it down so that we can get on and drive that train. Then what I’m going to do on the side is train the doc on how to use it for a low cost, get him certified, because people should be certified to be writing for stimulant medications that are controlled substances, and right now anybody and his brother’s got an MD DO degree, and can just write for anything you want to. That is not the way it should be, because they don’t know what they’re doing.
Now, take it over to the second point you were talking about, which is slipping my mind right now, because it was a good doggone point.
Chris Badgett: It was the training versus going to the doctor’s office. Like, how does the course for ADD, which you’re saying it’s all about becoming an informed consumer I think, and then now when I go to the doctor, who’s hopefully familiar with the same research and coursework that I’ve been studying, but maybe with more medical details around it all, that experience is more to treat it, right?
Dr. Parker: It’s to treat it, and really educate the doctor. Now, some people, there are doctors out there that are … And this is what’s going on with the younger medical profession. The younger medical profession is more willing to listen than the older medical profession, because they’re aware of what’s going on with the internet training and this sort of thing. They’re happy to get some information. When I have somebody that’s out of state that I’m seeing, I tell them if they want to consult with another doc, I can’t write for the meds, “Don’t see a psychiatrist, because a psychiatrist is going to be threatened by me. He’s going to disagree with me. He’s going to tell you I’m all wet. ‘Don’t talk to Parker because his head is inserted somewhere, and I’m the man.’” So I say, “Don’t talk to a psychiatrist unless he sounds like he might be able to get along with me.” Because I’m not going to try to tell him what to do. All I want to do is be on the team. But I tell them, “Go see a pediatrician.”
Pediatricians are open, as are family practitioners. That’s all they do every day, is try to figure out what’s going on, in a very global, large way. They don’t have the … Their reputation is not stated on, “I’m the best guy in the world.” It’s like, “I’m trying to find some information.” They’re information junkies. That’s why they’re doing that. Then they frequently work out as a second opinion guy, and we can work with them on a team level, so that makes it more fun. It works out.
Chris Badgett: Okay. I have one quick question, and then one more big question. The quick question is, would you advise somebody to go after the B2B first, or B2C first, or put both in play at the same time, if they’re looking to start creating online courses, and training, and memberships around some kind of health issue?
Dr. Parker: I’m going to answer you in the way that I would answer on the internet, okay?
Chris Badgett: Okay.
Dr. Parker: Because I think it really depends on the individual. Some people, in my experience professionally, only want to talk to fellow professionals. Their whole identity is like, “I’m from Harvard, and this is who I talk to, and I’m in the club. Are you in the club? If you’re in the club, let’s do the Harvard handshake. This is who we are, and I don’t talk to anybody else.” They’re not into B2C, so I wouldn’t try to talk to them. I would say, “If you want to talk to Harvard, Harvard doesn’t know this. Talk to Harvard. That’s what you need to do, because you have the language down. You got the skills down. You’re a smart guy.” Honestly, I’m going to tell you right now, Chris, there’s some people I’ve talked to, and this is not saying anything negative about them. There are some really, really cool people out there that are Harvard … I’m using metaphorically, of course. Harvard people that want to talk to Harvard, but don’t have a system, so god bless them. They should go talk to Harvard. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Chris Badgett: Right.
Dr. Parker: That doesn’t make me right and them wrong. I can’t talk to them because I’ve already done something like that. I’m going in a different direction. If they have a transformational moment and they say, “Look, I want to change this thing on a global scale. I want to get down to the sea. I wanted to go into South Africa.” Well then they’ve got to go down to the customer level, because then they’re going to be … They’re on a much more global, scalable, “Let’s make this happen for everybody,” and I’m going to talk in terms that the average person can get. I’m going to set it up that if they don’t get it, they’re going to tell me they don’t get it, and I’m going to change it so they do get it. Then that’s its own kind of fun. Both of them are fun. There’s a lot of fun with both of them. I’ve really enjoyed … I have no regret whatsoever for the wonderful times I’ve had talking to my medical colleagues. I’ve loved it.
I can think of story after story where I’ve been in some kind of a funny situation. I’ll tell you one time I was in Waco and I was riding with a rep in the afternoon, and I saw the cows, and I was like, “These cows are so beautiful I could go out and hug a cow. That cow right there, I could hug that cow.” And so at dinner I brought this up. I said, “What kind are those cows?” I was describing the cow. I said, “I can’t believe you guys are in here and you don’t know what kind of cow that is.” Because I said, “I’m going to take one of those cows home. I’m going to stuff it and put it in my waiting room.” We got some laughs out of that, but that was fun talking to the guys. I loved that opportunity, and we had some laughs out of it. But I also enjoyed talking to the public, so it just depends on what your mission is, and who you are as a person, and that’s where you find what your branding is. You kind of practice and do what your mission is, and if you think your mission’s an academic mission, god bless you.
There’s a guy that’s really fantastic on an academic mission out in California, Steven Stall. I admire him a great deal. I’ve learned a lot from him. I think he’s one of the world’s preeminent psychopharmacologists. I want to get him on my podcast. That’s my secret mission, because he’s going to teach me again. He’s taught me a lot. I wouldn’t say to him, “Steve, you know, you should be talking to the public.” I wouldn’t say that. Nor would I say to somebody who’s like myself, I’m a street guy. I’m a practitioner in the street. I’m going to talk to street people because I know the pain that’s out there. I see it every day. There’s no difficulty for me to try to figure out what to say, because I see it and live it every day. Then it puts me on a mission there.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome, and I just want to really highlight what you’re saying there, and especially with all of your experience, one of your true gifts, and something for people to think about is, when you develop the skillset of talking like academic or at a high level to another professional, where you’ve got all the lingo, and you’re taking shortcuts with the terminology, if you can do that and you can also talk to the end person without being impatient and letting them learn, and taking all this, what maybe come from a complex body of work, but making it approachable to someone who’s not a trained professional in that field, that is an awesome skillset no matter what industry you’re in.
Dr. Parker: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s true.
Chris Badgett: Well, I kind of want to end it with like one big question. Some of the people listening out there are entrepreneurs. They’re looking to, let’s say, partner with health care experts, and attack big problems, or maybe they’re also the … They have some kind of specialty, too, and they just want to do it on their own. But I love talking to big picture people like you. I’m one of those, and I can zoom out to the humanity level, the global level, and that’s really fun for me, and I like doing that. If we were to look at where’s the opportunity, either what are some key opportunities, or what are some big problems that need solving out there in the health care world? Let’s just list some of those off, because as a parent, as a fellow human being, a guy with friends and family of all ages, I care about health issues, and if I were to lay out some of the … Let me just go first and lay out some of the big things I see on my mind. I’ve heard statistics that by 2030, 50% of the world population will be diabetic or pre-diabetic.
Dr. Parker: [inaudible 00:53:32].
Chris Badgett: I think there’s a lot of opportunity, like you mentioned, around the microbiome, in terms of health. And just general issues having to deal with toxicity and the environment. Addiction issues. Movement issues, like just people don’t move. I mean, the human body’s been evolving for a long time, but you’ve got to move it, and things are happening to people. Vision issues, like if all the screen time and close range focus. Those are just … I’m just spit balling, but those are some of the big opportunities for health-minded entrepreneurs and educators to come together and to work on these problems. What are some big ones that you see out there that really need addressing and are prime for the picking, or picking up the flag and joining forces and working on?
Dr. Parker: Well, it’s funny, Chris. You know, I’m listening to you talking, and I’m thinking about the people that I’ve just interviewed, because these folks need their own show. I mean, I just interviewed Joe Pizzorno on … He’s one of the top three guys in functional medicine in the world.
Chris Badgett: And what is functional medicine, for the uninitiated?
Dr. Parker: Oh, I’m sorry. Functional medicine is really … Let me just break it down real quickly. If you think about it, traditional medicine, for want of a better word, is acute medicine. You’re going to live or die. I’m going to save your life. I may have to cut your arm off to save your life. It’s acute, acute, acute. Even the immune system testing, IGE, is immunoglobulin emergency. If you eat that shrimp, you’re going to die, and that’s IGE. Now, I’m over in chronic illness. Chronic illness is more chronic. It takes place over time. It’s more subtle. It’s more nuanced, and it’s more … You have to dig deeper to see what’s not right in your face. If it’s not in your face, then it doesn’t exist to a traditional guy. What happens is the traditional guys, what happens is they fail to get the chronic illness piece, generally speaking. And they distrust laboratory testing that’s not LabCorp, whereas I myself distrust LabCorp, because LabCorp is good in several areas, but absolutely inadequate in other areas. Pardon me.
The chronic illness piece requires, as I said, nuances. Like I’m working with a guy right now, I don’t know if you listen to the podcast or not, but I’m working with this guy and he is a phenomenal guy. He’s a thought leader on molecular and cellular physiology. How the transporter proteins on the pre-synaptic nerve such neurotransmitters back up into the nerve so they can shoot them back out in milliseconds, and those transporter proteins have a rhea stat that’s modified by a thing called methyl groups, so if you’re over-methylated, these guys don’t work right because they’re shut down. If you’re under-methylated, they’re sucking all the neurotransmitters out of the … The whole methylation thing is like sitting right there, but it’s below the cell level, and you can measure it with a low-cost test. It’s amazing. But now the average person who’s a traditional guy says, “That’s hocus pocus. You’re talking out the back of a truck here, buddy. We’re not selling cantaloupes, you know.”
What you have is a split between acute and chronic. That is the main split between functional, and functional medicine does a great, great, great job of testing. What they do is, they disdain acute care. They don’t want to give anybody any psych meds, even though I’ve seen thousands of lives saved with good psych meds. They’re like, “You shouldn’t use psych meds.” Well, no, you shouldn’t use psych meds incorrectly. That’s the problem. Our psych meds are being used incorrectly across the board. That’s a whole nother thing, but the middle is somewhere in there. One’s really strong on all these micromeasurements, and the other one’s not. That’s the big difference. You said another question, though, that I was trying to [inaudible 00:57:52].
Chris Badgett: Some big problems or opportunities that in mind science or elsewhere in the health world, that really need … That are just prime for, you know, new training and thinking.
Dr. Parker: I think a big one, I had an interview. You were talking about exercise. A great interview with a very wonderful woman. It’s going to be published next week, on preventing Alzheimer’s. The whole thing was exercise, and they found that brain-derived neurotropic factor was actually enhanced by exercise. It’s documented, all kinds of research on it. If you do the exercise on a regular basis, you prevent Alzheimer’s. She has so much knowledge, she could easily do a podcast. Another one that I think should be doing a podcast would be some of these folks that are doing the … What am I trying to say? The seminars, you know, where you pay some money and you do seminars, and they have all these different people in. I forget what the terminology for it would be.
Chris Badgett: Like a summit?
Dr. Parker: Yeah, a summit. Summits will work. I think that’s great, but again, a summit is really talking down. It’s not talking with. Whereas we’re doing, we’re talking with each other. People who are listening to us are thinking, “I either disagree with him,” or, “I disagree with him.” But you know, in the conversation there’s no imperious discourse going on. We both have mutual respect for each other, and by definition, we have mutual respect for whoever is listening. Whereas when you get into the summit, you get into a little bit, like, “I’m going to tell you how it works. This is the way it works, and if you don’t do it this way …” Which is a little offensive. It’s not like we’re on a team. It’s like I’m learning from you, and there’s this imperious hierarchy, vertical management thing.
The deal is, this switch. I’ve been meaning to say this earlier, because it encouraged me that we would want to share this. The other difference between traditional medicine and functional medicine is that functional medicine is much more horizontal, and traditional medicine is much more vertical.
Chris Badgett: What does that mean?
Dr. Parker: Vertical in that, “I’m the doctor. You’re the patient. Shut the hell up. Nothing personal. Just do what I tell you to do, come back and tell me you did it. End of conversation.”
Chris Badgett: There’s no real feedback loop, or it’s not developed.
Dr. Parker: Yeah. It’s vertical. “I’m on top of you. You do what I tell you to do, and don’t give me any static.” I’ve heard this repeatedly from people. Now, what happens is horizontal is, “I’m telling you this. You tell me what you think.” We go back and forth. That’s participatory medicine. That’s the medicine of the future. That mutual respect is what’s going to make medicine acceptable. It’s one of the problems we have, is it’s politically unacceptable, because people are so vertical that they don’t trust medical professionals, especially with things like psych meds. Like, “I’m a doctor. Don’t ask me … I’ll tell you how it works.” Then they ask vague questions like, “Is it working?” “What do you mean?” “Well, you know, is it working?” “But you haven’t given me any criteria to figure out what the heck’s going on here. Why would you … What do you mean?” It goes back and forth. But if the vertical guy tells you what he means, then he’s going to lose his authority. You’ll be thinking like he’s thinking, which he doesn’t want you to do. He wants to think for you. That is not good, and that’s the end. That is going to be the end of traditional medicine. Thank goodness it’s ending, but that’s some of the differences.
Back to your question. There are so many people. Immune system dysregulation needs a podcast. It’s a major, major problem in chronic illness. Immunity could … A podcast could go on forever there.
Chris Badgett: I could have a whole podcast about inflammation, too, right?
Dr. Parker: That’s right. The same thing. I mean, just GI function alone could be a podcast. Podcasts on cardiovascular function and exercise. I mean, they’re probably out there. I don’t have enough time to watch podcasts and follow them, but yes, I think there’s a tremendous opportunity, back to sort of the mental health caring individuals. Talk about parenting. Now, I’ve interviewed a number of women who are coaches on parenting ADHD and special kids, so some of them are already in that quote-unquote market, but I mean, I think there are other things, like the whole business of autism spectrum, and what to do with developmentally delayed kids, and how to actually manage them. The difficulty of managing them through life. I mean, we’re going to have a whole … That’s a whole nother thing I’m going to do. I mean, that’s there. I’m telling you my secret. It’s out there. If somebody else wants to do it, that’s fine. We can work together on it. I mean, you can’t go too deep with that. Anyway, I think there are a lot of opportunities. I think it’s a pretty doggone exciting time, because the technology has completely changed the way we think about mind science. You just find what technology you love, talk it up, become a brand, end of conversation.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Well, Chuck, I really want to thank you for coming on the show. My big takeaways from this conversation is just admiring what you’ve done with the open-mindedness and the challenging of assumptions, and moving around to get different places of perspective while also staying committed to data and the science part, you know, double blind, placebo control, whatever. These aren’t guesses. Let’s figure out a way to test it, too.
Dr. Parker: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Badgett: Developing your brand, and having a horizontal feedback loop so it’s not a top-down, “I’m the author. Listen to me. We’re done.”
Dr. Parker: So true. I have admiration for you, too. I think the way you handle yourself with your podcast, I love listening to your podcast. I get a lot out of it. Some of it’s over my head, in spite of the fact that I’ve done WordPress for years. I know that this is a whole new phenomenon in terms of … What are they called? Janis, what’s the second level from … You have a theme, and then you’ve got a …?
Chris Badgett: Plugins?
Dr. Parker: A child theme.
Chris Badgett: Oh, a child theme. Yeah.
Dr. Parker: I really don’t know how all that stuff works. I’m totally cool with plugins. Probably got a little crazy with plugins.
Chris Badgett: Most people do at the beginning.
Dr. Parker: Yeah. Anyway, I do admire you, and I wanted to make sure that I registered that, and I do look forward to working with you. I’m looking forward to our next conversation, and I’m going to get a little more into development before I take your time to go over it, but I’m looking forward to our next conversation, because the way you handle these conversations is exemplary. You do a great job. I think the way you handle the people like Danny Aine, who’s a hell of a good guy himself, I mean, this is what we all should be doing. I mean, this is horizontal communication at its best, and I appreciate it.
Chris Badgett: Well, thank you. That means a lot. Well, if you guys want to check out Chuck’s podcast, you can head on over to CoreBrainJournal.com, and there’s an episodes link on the menu. Just like Chuck’s doing, he’s really investing in his own education around teaching online, and sometimes it’s over his head, but I spend a lot of my free time actually listening to medical podcasts, and bio-hacking podcasts, because I’m trying to educate myself. I care a lot about health and nutrition and things like that, so I’m always open, too. I can’t wait to dig more into your podcast and see what some of this next evolution of the horizontal communication, the people who are teaching in that way, or challenging assumptions, are talking about. Where else can people go to connect with you and find out more about you?
Dr. Parker: Well, that Core Brain Journal is where we’re going to go. I have a … What I’m developing is Core Brain Academy. It’s not up yet, but that’s going to be the training site, and then I have a treatment site, which is Core Psych. C-O-R-E P-S-Y-C-H. The reason I don’t like Core Psych is because how can you spell it? But that’s where I did 460 articles, and by the way, anybody that goes over, I’m going to tell you right now, I’m embarrassed because I’ve got to change the theme. I had a guy I was working with. He put a new theme on the whole thing, and the fonts, the whole thing is a total mess. In a way, I don’t want to mention it, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of good videos over there that somebody might be interested in.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your experience with us.
Dr. Parker: Thank you so much, Chris. I enjoyed talking to you. Look forward to meeting you personally one day.
Chris Badgett: Absolutely.
