Ep 57 Dr. Darian Parker on Evolving Through Fitness and Life Editing: Supporting balance and change

Discover the transformative power of fitness with Dr. Darian Parker, the 2023 Idea Personal Trainer of the Year, who joins us to reveal the deep ties between physical training and personal evolution. This episode is a workout for your mind, as Dr. Parker, a maestro of behavior modification, shares the importance of building relationships and emotional support within the realm of personal training. We examine the nuances of behavior change, emphasizing the creation of choice architecture as a pivotal strategy for nudging individuals towards a healthier, more active life. Together, we confront the sedentary behaviors that dominate modern life, uncovering the emotional underpinnings that can lead to a productivity crisis.

Balance is not just a concept for the gym, it's the essence of a fulfilling life. I open up about my personal journey with setting boundaries, introducing the concept of a 'stopping list,' a tool for growth that highlights the power of saying no to make room for the yeses that matter. We discuss the art of life editing, which can be as simple as shutting down work early on Fridays or as profound as cutting out distractions like social media. And when it comes to the challenges of parenting, we share insights into teaching our children the value of setting boundaries and pursuing personal growth, ensuring they're equipped for emotional and mental resilience.

Wrapping up our session, Dr. Parker shares the secret sauce to his effective communication and time management—prompt responsiveness and the art of prioritizing. He tells us how subtracting certain commitments has opened doors to new opportunities, illustrating this through his own decision to scale back on podcasting to focus on other interests. We express our gratitude for the rich conversation and the connections forged, inviting listeners to apply these principles in their own lives for a holistic transformation that goes beyond the physical.

Transcript

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 0:05

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Telewellness Hub podcast. I'm Marta Hamilton, your host, and today we have the pleasure of having our guest on this show be a 2023 Idea Personal Trainer of the Year and also a podcaster with one of the top 2% most popular shows, dr D Social Network. And so today's guest, dr Darian Parker, gets to join on and talk to us a little bit about personality development, behavior change and exercise science. Dr Darian Parker earned his PhD in sports education leadership, with an emphasis in behavior modification, from University of Nevada, las Vegas. He earned his master's and bachelor's degree from James Madison University in kinesiology. Dr Parker is the co-owner of Epic Leisure Management LLC, the owner of Parker Personal Training LLC and the host of Dr D's Social Network Podcast. Dr Parker is a certified personal trainer through the NSCA. Welcome, dr Parker.

Dr. Darian Parker: 1:06

Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 1:08

You know, and I should have confirmed prior to starting, what do you prefer to go by? Is it Dr D, Dr Parker, Dr Darian?

Dr. Darian Parker: 1:17

Man, I get all those actually with people. I don't know I think it's whatever the person wants to do, so I honestly don't care, it doesn't matter.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 1:25

Okay. Okay, I'm asking because I realized, as I had done your bio, there's just so much interesting background. I was so excited to talk with you and so grateful of your time being a guest, winning yourself host a top 2% podcast and saw your name runching in many different ways, but kind of I appreciate the openness to whichever way. I'm so interested in people who are doing dedicating their lives, as you are, to wellness work, and you're doing it from a perspective of an educational background. You're doing it from the perspective of clinic, client work, social broadcasting, awareness and even creativity through things like poetry, I see. So, before we dive into that, my first question for you would be why do you do the wellness work that you do?

Dr. Darian Parker: 2:18

I think the biggest thing is I just really figured out pretty early that you know it's about the relationship building that you do with people. Fitness is a great platform for building relationships with people, especially with what I do with training is you're one-on-one with lots of people on a regular basis and you're learning about them. You're building kind of this confidant relationship, you're expressing compassion, you're working on your listening skills. So I think fitness is a great way to build your personal interpersonal skills with other people and doing that. So I was early on. I got into it because I just wanted to have build meaningful relationships and practice that, and fitness is a good excuse, kind of, for doing that.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 3:07

Yeah, you know you're sorry, I think I I finally stepped into a personal training for myself after I injured my ankle. I broke my ankle and I could not do any of the things I typically loved. But I wanted to be active and found a personal trainer and although I went for the physical aspect you're so right, there are so many intangible aspects of personal training it's this person you trust, it's this person you lean on. You feel like they're encouraging you, supporting you. There's an accountability piece. So I could definitely see how that relationship piece is so essential, especially in today's age of some isolation and loneliness. There's so much connection in fitness, even just going to a class, right A class or with somebody. That's awesome.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 3:59

And you mentioned the personal development with the personality. And just I'm so curious because as a fitness trainer, I'm sure you are trained. Your area of expertise is to really look at the physical, especially with the can. You I'm stumbling Kinesiology, which my, my husband had actually studied, but yeah, so with that, and yet really you're focusing so much on behavior and personality. Can you share a little bit about that aspect of the work that you do?

Dr. Darian Parker: 4:32

Yeah, I think most training is emotional. I honestly do. I think people come in. The price of admission is exercise.

Dr. Darian Parker: 4:43

But what I've learned over time, and why I pursued my doctorate in this area, was that we're trying to help people be the best version of themselves, and that's behavior change. How do you get someone to go from exhibiting a behavior that they don't want to do Maybe, in this case, is they don't want to be sedentary, or you know, they want to be more active and then providing an intervention that will help them to create the desirable behavior that they want. And so, whatever that is, that's either a subtraction or addition-based equation. When looking at that, if I want to nudge somebody towards a behavior I have to have to create, it's the book Nudge is really great about this, and Sunstein and Thaler the authors of the book behavioral scientists they're really good about this. But in a sense that you have to have like, create this choice architecture and in that architecture, how do you get somebody to move out their spot? Because, behaviorally, we will always default to what's easiest to do, so our default mechanism is what most everyone has, a default mechanism, whether that's like hey, my default mechanism is I'm going to literally do nothing. That's what I default back to when I don't feel great, when I'm tired. You know it could be a variety of different default mechanisms, so for me, I look at it and say, okay, how do I get someone to do this on a regular basis and make this a part of their lives and create enough margin in their life to do it? Because we're like in the productivity crisis age as well, where people are wanting to be overly productive and overly stimulated, often in avoidance of what's really happening in their lives. Sitting down and thinking about what you want to do with your life, or what your life means, is scary. It's extremely scary to people because it becomes this reflective process of maybe I'm not where I want to be, and that's scary. So we fill that stuff up with all the junk in our lives, all the information, all the screen, all the scrolling, all the productivity negativity, and so you have to create a margin in your life in order to have self-care, in order to take care of yourself and with what I do. I would say probably the most powerful way to do that is to create an accountability mechanism, to create something that pulls you an appointment, a person, a group, whatever it is that pulls you from that carousel you're on or your default mechanism. That you're on for that, that's easier said than done. But like you hired a trainer, that's one of the most powerful mechanisms to create accountability is knowing someone is waiting for you, that you are not set in stone.

Dr. Darian Parker: 7:43

Your personality is not permanent. There's lots of great books about this, but I think a lot of times our culture, our society, wants to put people into categories and say that these different personality tests but most of them are not valid, by the way, they're just pop culture tests. They're fun enneagrams, things like that. It's all. You're a two, you're a three or four. You're naturally not any of those. You exist on a spectrum of behavior and personality. You exhibit personality traits that sometimes exhibit themselves to be more outgoing in certain situations and more reserved in other situations, more open-minded to some things, less open-minded to other things. It's things like that. So it's malleable. Your personality is actually very malleable. So, understanding that you start getting the picture together of a person, it's like okay, where is this person currently and how they exhibit these traits of openness, neuroticism and agreeability, all these things, and then understanding how do I help move this person towards where they would like to be. For that.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 9:11

Man, you bring up so many good points, even just the concept that we're malleable and that we do tend to, as society, get fixed on our category. Just we know that neuroplasticity is real right, where we can rewire our brain, we can change our behaviors, our perspectives. And I love when you brought up that it can be an addition and subtraction equation and that we live in a productivity crisis. It's almost like we've created like a division and an exponent and then like square equation to create our margins and over complicated it. I actually bring that up sometimes, even in the wellness, health and wellness field, we can get really complicated about how to approach wellness and having to do all the things. So I love when you brought up how to get into just your margin and looking at that change. A personal question how did you take into account accountability or find that margin for yourself even in, for example, becoming certified trainer of the year? What did you do? What were some things that you did personally that you found beneficial?

Dr. Darian Parker: 10:31

Worked less, I would say big time.

Dr. Darian Parker: 10:34

I would say that probably for the first 17 years of my training and running clubs and different things I was doing, I just worked a lot and I didn't have any margin and I felt like I couldn't like, maybe, be the best, I couldn't devote a lot of time to self-improvement because of that, and so try to figure out how can I create more time in my life, also put boundaries around my work life so that I can have the energy to contribute, meeting my colleagues more often, spending time with my family and continue to have a viable career. So I mentioned this. You know subtraction and addition. It's good to have not only a to-do list but also good to have a stopping list Like what am I going to stop doing or do less so that I can create more energy and time in my life to do the things I want to do for that? And so I think I kind of think differently about it and generally I love being productive, but I also love doing nothing and I think we have to get comfortable with doing nothing. A lot of people I talk to struggle with this. I was doing some lecture not that long ago and I kind of mentioned this and I heard a few people go. I can't sit still, I have to do something. All the time that's a huge red flag when I hear that it's like there's a lack of comfort and silence and that silence.

Dr. Darian Parker: 12:02

Little kids do this all the time. If you have a child, they start becoming philosophers. They're bedtime philosophers. As soon as you take all the stimulation away, they want to talk about everything and they want to get deep with you. It's because they're no longer distracted. You have subtracted their stimulation in their life and now it's just one-on-one. And then all the thoughts they were putting away they start coming to the surface. And this happens with adults. Adults are very afraid of their own thoughts, like kids are afraid in the dark. Adults are afraid of their thoughts. And when you're afraid of your thoughts and to confront and come to terms with your thoughts, you'll do almost anything not to feel that. For that, and sometimes when you do take the time and create the margin and connect with your thoughts or you meditate, whatever, then trauma starts to develop from meditation.

Dr. Darian Parker: 12:53

Sometimes you're dealing with a lot of difficult things. So I think for me it's just like working less, setting really hard boundaries. Like for me, like Fridays I don't work past 12 o'clock pm. It's a hard pass. Somebody wants to train past, then it's always a no and I stick to that. I never train or work at all on Sunday. Never work on Monday mornings, afternoon, like it's a hard set thing. I will not be moved off of that. So once you give an inch, you'll start bringing. It'll be two people, three people, you'll just the floodgates will open. So I think maybe surprising a lot of people working less is actually there's been a big thing for me.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 13:37

I love that you shared that, because you know, in your bio you can hear all of the things that you've done and all of the accomplishments, and what a great reminder to hear from you directly. Okay, you can do less in order to feel like you can do more, especially in the area of personal development. Right? Because what I'm hearing is, if you don't have energy, you can't develop personally, and that's what happened in the first 17 years you mentioned. You know there was no time for that personal development.

Dr. Darian Parker: 14:06

I think it happens all the time with people. They just spend too much time being busy and then, once you have a family, you know the cup gets real full very quickly. So I think it's you know that self awareness, reflection, creating boundaries is really critical. Like you read, my bio looks like I'm doing everything under the sun, but I'm not doing it all the time and I'm making sure that. I think the other thing is like editing your life.

Dr. Darian Parker: 14:33

I think you got to edit out stuff that doesn't contribute to your well-being and for me, like seven years ago, I edited out completely social media, all of it, except for LinkedIn. I have not had any of this and I don't miss any of that stuff. I feel like, logically, I said, OK, is this contributing for me personally to my well-being? And I thought no. So it was very simple for me personally to my wellbeing, and I thought no, so it was very simple for me. And having my background, I was like, okay, this was, it was easier for me because I had all the knowledge and the backgrounds. I was like, okay, this doesn't this. Also, I made the jump to be like I know this won't influence my business either, because I know other ways to make business versus doing this, so just editing your life again. That subtraction, addition part is really good to think about.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 15:20

Yeah, I love that. Editing your life I had written down time plus boundaries equals energy. You kind of mentioned that, yeah, and then, just subtracting, what do you have to edit out to increase your time? What do you have to say no to to enforce those boundaries? Uh, for that energy, you know, I, I do you. You mentioned kids. Do you have kids? Do you? Are you a parent?

Dr. Darian Parker: 15:44

I have a 12 year old.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 15:45

Yeah, 12 year old okay, yeah, because I really did so much. When you said that about the go to bed, bedtime all of a sudden, I mean you can have conversations about the universe, meaning of life. Yeah, yeah, how do you, how do you, as someone who has so much specialized experience and you give lectures in the area of this, how do you apply that as a parent? Yeah, just to be able to. It sounds like what an amazing opportunity to give, to gift your children at an earlier age this concept of being able to create boundaries, to look at what's good for your being, like you said, and just really look at this personal development, any suggestions that you have that you apply as a parent. Maybe not in business, maybe not in specific goal settings when it comes to our fitness, but maybe that emotional wellness and mental wellness that we can influence our parenting.

Dr. Darian Parker: 16:50

I'm going to lie. I struggle with this, with parenting. I don't want to present something that's not true. Parenting is the ultimate test in life. I feel it's like you're raising an alien. I mean, you really are. Someone came here and they have no clue about your culture, customs and anything about how the world works, and it tests you on a regular basis. So I definitely try to implement the things that I know, but sometimes I fail. Honestly, it's just the truth. I fail at it and I'm always very calm. I tend to like I look at it philosophically and being calm and getting my point across and listening. But you know you get pushed to the edge, I think, in parenting regularly. So even the person who has the best education about it, I think, is going to struggle with it. And a lot of my clients are brilliant people. They're top of their industry and stuff and they are struggling being parents, you know. So I think that's more relatable, which is like the struggle and you try to do implement different strategies, but I feel like children.

Dr. Darian Parker: 17:53

They always like test the strategies, they're always like evolving and they're always like I know a different way around this strategy my dad's doing to me and I was like always, always happens. I'm like man, I got it. This is the greatest test, I swear.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 18:09

I'm so glad, it's so refreshing that you share that, because I often get my background is as a therapist and I used to work with kids and I'm now. I'm told parents like look, I have read all the books, I've done the trainings, I've done the continuing education, but when it comes to actually as a parent I know the struggle is so real, it's, it is a challenge and I imagine your, your experience working in physically challenging experiences helps foster kind of the personality like okay, I can be calm, I can approach this in a really kind of dogmatic way or just kind of rational, or explain or listen, right, listen, because I'm sure there's a lot of listening to your body. What's your body doing, what's your body telling you that you can apply. So I think that's really wonderful that you can kind of mirror some of that into parenting. I think you brought up parenting being challenging. I think, ultimately, so much in our human existence is about confronting challenges and discomfort and navigating our way through that.

Dr. Darian Parker: 19:18

Yeah, most definitely. I've never been afraid of discomfort. I run towards it. That's definitely a quality for me. Or arguments I look at arguments as propulsion. If done properly, they always pull you forward. If they're done properly, if it's emotionally led, they're very hurtful, but if they're done in a way that's respectful and civil, it could be jet fuel for it. And I always recommend to people you know people are on the internet, they're sifting through all this information, all this self-help stuff, and I always recommend that people spend a lot of time learning about philosophy and I never hear anyone talk about this. It's always other versions of behavioral science and stuff like take philosophy courses, read about philosophy, the history of philosophy.

Dr. Darian Parker: 20:14

Philosophy is a great way to learn how to argue with people because it teaches you the steps of how to be calm, how to provide factual information, how to listen. I took three philosophy courses one in my bachelor's, one in my master's, one in my doctorate and each one of those taught me how to be a very good communicator, a very good arguer of information and a huge emotional regulator how to regulate my emotions when I speak with people and not be triggered by everything that comes my way. I don't get that Like. For me it's like okay, it came to me, let me process it, let me evaluate it, let me be calm and let me respond for that. So we would always do these exercises in class where you get up with another person and you would argue your point and then you would also argue points you didn't believe in as well. Like for that, and I thought that was a very interesting exercise.

Dr. Darian Parker: 21:14

Once you argue something you don't believe in, it makes you think about that a bit more and more analytically. So I would say, as something to like, start looking up more of to help in your life. Look up philosophy courses, classes, the historical value of philosophy, just all those things. Humanism, naturalism, hedonism, all these different things, what are different philosophies in life. And it's also good every 10 years is to write a paper, a philosophy about your life. What do you believe about your life? What are you doing in this part of your life that you want to do, you would like to do, and what do you not want to do? And then compare those every 10 years and go look how different you are over time. For that, so a lot of self-reflection, evaluation. What is your philosophy when you're 20 about life when you're 30, when you're 40? I guarantee you'll be very different and it's good to reflect on that.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 22:16

Yeah, this concept of self-reflection. I love that question. What do you believe about your life? Bringing it back to earlier, you mentioned how distracted we are as a society. Whether it's all the information, all the social media, it's hard to self-reflect. And if we're not self-reflecting, are we really looking at our beliefs and our goals to develop and to change?

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 22:40

I saw a statistic that it looks like around New Year's the majority of the US population made New Year's resolutions and goals and only about 8% of the population carried it through the first month. Any insight for people when it comes to having the intention of change, having the intention of development? I'm sure you see people come across, you know, maybe hitting a wall or having a challenge and kind of carrying it through. You gave really great suggestions with studying philosophy and knowing that we're malleable and looking at your time and your boundaries and your energy and not sticking ourselves into a category right Like no, I am this way so I won't change. So I give up Any other recommendations or insight from your past experience and training and background in this area of helping people get back up and keep going right.

Dr. Darian Parker: 23:37

Yeah, I think, like especially with the New Year's resolutions, it's um I. One of the reasons they fail is that people haven't come to terms. This sounds bad, but people have not come to terms with what they're not doing well, like they really haven't sat and thought about it. They just go I'm going to change this, I'm going to start doing this now. But they haven't actually reflected upon what's happening, that undesirable behavior. Having reflected on it, come to terms with it, made peace with the fact that, and actually said to themselves I'm not doing well, I'm just not, I need to fire myself. I need to fire myself because I've been trying to do this and I keep not doing this well, so I need to give myself the pink slip and say I just can't do this. And all the clients that have been with me for many, many years, they're all like that. They all always tell me I just came to a point and I was like I just know I'm not going to do this. I've come to peace, come to terms with that. I will not show up unless you're here. That's not a weakness, that's just admitting something that you are struggling with, and I think people just skip that part and go. I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to do this or do that, instead of actually thinking about your thoughts. For that I'm a big proponent of thinking about your thoughts and designing your environment.

Dr. Darian Parker: 25:05

Most people don't design their environment, they just exist in their environment and you let the environment influence how they live in the world, instead of saying I'm the architect of my environment. How do I want to live Everything from the minute you wake up? Who do I want to be today? Who am I today? Every day, do that exercise, wake up and go. Who am I going to be today? Who am I today? Every day, do that exercise, wake up and go. Who am I going to be today? How am I going to act today? How am I going to treat my family today? How am I going to treat my coworkers? How will I exist in this space the rest of this 24 hours and just do it every day? Most people don't do that, so their environment is controlling them instead of them designing and controlling their environment.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 25:51

I love that, but the architecture you being able to design kind of goes back to what do you believe about your life and even being able to do it for the next 24 hours in your environment around you. Dr Darian Parker, I'm so grateful that you were able to come on here. I found myself kind of a fangirl moment in the beginning, like not being able twisting up my words. But how can people connect with you? I know a lot of people want to, maybe they already are listening to your podcast but how can people connect with you.

Dr. Darian Parker: 26:20

I think the easiest way is through LinkedIn, my professional media. Just I'm on there. I respond to any messages and stuff on there. Email I'm a big proponent of email. Darianparker at gmailcom. You message me, I will get back to you very quickly. I really am a big proponent of respecting people's time and making sure that I get back to them in a timely manner. So those are more direct ways to contact me. And then I'm just learning more. If you want to learn more about me, my website's good drdarianparkercom spell the doctor out and then you would learn just all about my different interests on there. And then my podcast is on there, which I'm not doing as much these days because I subtracted some time from that. I was like I want to have time to do other things. I need to subtract some of this time for that, but there's a gigantic amount of episodes, like almost 700. You can learn all about me and all the people.

Dr. Darian Parker: 27:20

I connect with there and my philosophy about life and fitness and a variety of different things.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub): 27:27

Well, dr Parker, thank you so much. I am so grateful for your time. What you said is true. I connected kind of randomly out to you, I had been listening to your podcast and you responded right away. I'll always be so grateful for that connection and your time and thank you so much for being a part of our wellness journey.

Dr. Darian Parker: 27:43

Thank you so much for having me here. I appreciate it.