Parker Olson - Pushing Boundaries in Sports and Startups on Episode #212

Embarking on a remarkable journey of endurance, both in sport and in life, Parker Olson joins us to share his tale of triumph over trials. Imagine the perseverance it takes to live out of a Japanese pop-up camper, all while building a burgeoning food brand from scratch (Forij). Parker's narrative is a vivid illustration of the tenacity required for marathon runners and innovative entrepreneurs alike, as he masterfully intertwines the disciplines of pushing past physical limits and crafting a successful business.

Throughout our conversation, we unravel the art of audience growth, reflecting on my own forays and the electrifying strategies that have helped me create a vibrant online community. We delve into the world of high-performance nutrition and the transformative power of mushrooms, discussing how these elements fuel our pursuits in sport and beyond. Parker and I explore the brave new world where routines like fasting and mushroom foraging become keystones of our daily lives, affecting our business savvy and athletic discipline in profound ways.

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Produced by Rise Virtually
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Other episodes you might enjoy:
World Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper,  Taylor Learmont (Little "T" Fitness), Bruce Boudreau (Vancouver Canucks), Rhonda Rajsich (Most Decorated US Racquetball player), Zach Bitter (Ultra Marathon Runner), Zion Clark (Netflix docuseries), Jana Webb (Founder of JOGA), Ben Johns (#1 Pickleball Player in the World)

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So I guess the message is like you should find things and I like to find them in physical feats and physical endeavors right, like the 10 minutes at 32 degrees was another one for me, and I'm like you do that and you're like 99.9% of other people would think that this is absolutely crazy and probably never even attempt it and like that is like such a mental unlock.

Speaker 2: 0:20

You're the most decorated racquetball player in US history, world's strongest man, from childhood passion to professional athlete, eight time Ironman champion. So what was it like making your debut in the NHL? What is your biggest piece of advice for the next generation of athletes, from underdogs to national champions? This is the Athletes Podcast, where high performance individuals share their triumphs, defeats and life lessons To educate, entertain and inspire the next generation of athletes. Here we go.

Speaker 3: 0:50

I'm excited to bring you on the Athletes Podcast. Parker Wilson, not only are you a marathon runner, not only are you a brand builder. A sounds like upcoming cyclist from what we were talking about. Dude, welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on. I'm excited to dive deeper into who you are. The athlete behind the Forage brand maybe we could say or how do you want to describe it?

Speaker 1: 1:13

Yeah, yeah, great. I mean, yeah, david, I'm obviously stoked, but I feel like we connected years ago at this point and had talked about a pod experience and I guess, when I think about like business or building stuff or entrepreneurship, to me like the sort of a lot of the athletic endeavors that also kind of go through behind, you know, behind the scenes or whatnot, are so critical to that and really honestly, some of the early inspiration for me of what inspired me to start Forage my first brand, and so, yeah, I love talking sports and particularly like long course endurance stuff. So I'm stoked to be here and it's an awesome intersection, right, sports and sort of business and whatnot.

Speaker 3: 1:52

So the overlap is insane. People don't realize it, and I think athletes, entrepreneurs, understand it. They recognize it pretty quickly. I first want to I don't know where to take this conversation off the hop, though, because you've got like you said. We've been connected for years and you've got a couple of different areas that you've been able to build audiences, whether it's on Twitter you have a love for mushrooms, transition to dietary experiments. Your sales organizations as well. So, like, maybe just tell me first off how life was like living in a bus for a year plus.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Yeah, yeah, the bus is probably a nice term. I, yeah, so I think what you're alluding to. I had this food brand. We needed to get it into retail distribution. It was like it's really hard to reach people over email and it was sort of at the tail ends of COVID but nobody was really traveling again.

Speaker 1: 2:48

So I bought because I didn't have a lot of money a Japanese import, 1995, like vintage pop-up camper, so like you hit a button and also the wheels on the right side. But you hit a button and the roof comes up and there's like a canvas tent and I slept out of that for about a year and drove around the whole country. I spent winter in the Midwest, which was awful. I mean, honestly, david, if I'm being super transparent with you, it was a lot of fun. I got to see the entire country for about a year. But I mean, I think I suffer from some PTSD from that experience. Honestly, like there were some grueling nights. There was one night a homeless man tried to break into the band and that was just like it was just really startling. So you know, you do what you got to do to build what you're building, but let's just say I'm happy that it's over with.

Speaker 3: 3:39

The amount of content that it created on LinkedIn for you alone, I think, was a bonus, aside from the, however much it caused for you to get the 95 Mobile. But, dude, that worth it on its own, eh.

Speaker 1: 3:52

I think so honestly. Yeah, a lot of people like, like or like oh, like you're like the van guy or whatever, and it got me in front of a lot of the decision makers I was trying to get in front of. I mean, it ultimately served its point, you know, and I think from a broader standpoint and when I take a step back, it sort of like was a good learning experience for me and in terms of like, hey, like, if you want to get in front of you the decision makers, like you have to do something different. Like if everybody's emailing and calling or whatever, like you've got to find different channels and different avenues to get in front of the people you're really trying to talk to.

Speaker 3: 4:24

I think that same goes for athletes who are trying to get exposure at the collegiate level, the university level. You know you can send tape in all you want, but there's hundreds of other guys and gals doing the exact same thing, right.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Yeah, I mean, you would definitely would know more than me.

Speaker 2: 4:39

But I don't pay attention to a ton of sports.

Speaker 1: 4:42

I pay a bit of attention to like to the tri circuit and sort of what's going on there, Some to like the running and the cycling circuit as well. I mean, but what about you? Have you heard some kind of crazy stories of people doing stuff to get in front of scouts and stuff like that?

Speaker 3: 4:56

I mean I'm trying to think of any that come to mind off the top. I mean, I just know that people now, with the power of social media, have the ability to literally get the attention of a coach in the matter of seconds because of one play or one moment in time, and that can be a difference maker. It used to be that you got you had to have coaches traveling in and they'd see one game and maybe they'd see some tape down the road. Now you have the ability to be constantly on the go, 24 seven, showcasing what you're doing, your training, your regime, your diet, so you can build like a portfolio out to be able to send and to be able to showcase who you are as a human being. And I think that's what differentiates athletes from good to great nowadays. If they are on social media is, hey, like this is who I am and this is the kind of athlete you're gonna get at your institution. And from a recruiting perspective, I think coaches probably look fondly upon that if it's done in the right way.

Speaker 1: 5:50

Totally yeah, I imagine too with Cook Stark. I mean, that's something I imagine you guys are focused on and thinking about with your athletes.

Speaker 3: 5:57

It's just it's getting brands opportunities to be able to collaborate with these females too. It's like we already have females using Elementi products. Why wouldn't Element wanna be able to collaborate with them, gain exposure from their audiences? Female athletes already converts like some ridiculous number better than males on their own. So the fact of the matter is that, like we should, we're just providing these opportunities to them and breaking down those barriers that have been there for decades. Dude, like one of the things that you've been able to accomplish, though, like you had three quarters, just under a million followers on Twitter, now called X I guess you've been able to build brands, build your personal brand. I think that was one of the topics I wanted to highlight from you. Specifically, you're incorporating your health, fitness, your diet regime. Like you've been able to just do this by sharing your content. Was there a strategy, Was there a thought process behind it down when you started?

Speaker 1: 6:54

Yeah, I mean not entirely. I think, when I think back, that there's definitely like some common threads though. Yeah, I mean. So I think what you're referencing in 2017, yeah, I was in college and I started building in Twitter. And I really started building in Twitter because the first kid I met at college I saw him on his phone. He looked kind of blue color but he had these really nice watches and I was like, what are you doing? And he finally showed me and basically he was growing Twitter accounts and so he had, like under in his portfolio of Twitter accounts, he must have had like five to 10 million followers across like maybe three to eight accounts, so some like pretty big accounts, some smaller accounts. He was growing and so he kind of showed me like early on, what to do and how to monetize it and my takeaway from it. And it's still really active today, right, and I actually think about this a lot today, working in the podcast space and I'm curious to hear if you do as well.

Speaker 1: 7:49

But really the number one way to grow, I think, anything organically from a content standpoint is to basically cross pollinate your content with other likewise audiences, right? So it's like David, you go to other podcasts and similar realms, and you say, hey, I'd love to have you on my show, I'd love to go on your show, you know, and so you're going on their show. You're talking about, maybe, what you talk about here, and vice versa, and that audience, who's already primed to be interested in these types of topics, is much more likely to go over and start following you, right? And so that's how we built the Twitter account. It was really getting it up to, you know, at least a certain size. I think I got it up to like about, you know, five to 10,000 on my own, and then from 10 to 50,000, my buddy basically like helped me. He was like, hey, I'll throw you a couple of retweets, so like, I'll retweet your content into mine and help me get up to like a couple more thousand.

Speaker 1: 8:41

And then, once I was at like 15,000, 20,000, I started reaching out and DMing accounts that were in the 20,000 to 100,000 range and I basically said like, hey, rt. Basically everybody knows that it's just RT, question mark. But what I would say is like, hey, like, retweet, like all retweet three of yours for one of mine, especially for bigger accounts, right, because an account that has a hundred thousand followers. Well, they really only want to be retweeting and sharing retweets with another account that has a hundred or more thousand followers. But I was willing to retweet three of their tweets and they were, you know, only had to retweet one of mine.

Speaker 1: 9:13

You sort of increase the value prop for them, so did that, and every 15 minutes for like weeks, months on end, you would retweet somebody else's content and then 15 minutes would go up and you'd un-retweet it and then you'd have somebody else lined up or then you'd retweet theirs and they've retweet yours. And that is how you're growing and people are seeing the retweets and like, oh, that's funny, quick follow, it's so easy to follow on Twitter, and so it's all about like creating some really good content for others to retweet, and then you're like cross pollinating all these audiences.

Speaker 3: 9:44

I Saw one of your tweets that was talking about, like the cross pollination factor. I totally agree. I think that's like people on Instagram and I mentioned him in our last episode with Mitchell Hooper, world's strongest man Basically, over the past couple years, has done that. You've probably seen him on Instagram. He's collaborated with basically every fitness influencer out there and he doesn't look like your stereotypical Quote-unquote world's strongest man like I have a picture next to him. He's he's got a hundred pounds plus on me, but it doesn't. He's not Thor, right? So he is his different agent.

Speaker 3: 10:18

His differentiating factor story is the fact that he's willing to go out and create content with anyone and he's putting himself out there. He's wearing limited clothing, doing whatever he needs to do to get the attention, likes the shares, and I feel like Similar to in your vein, it's creating content that people are willing to share. I think for athletes and specifically like where it's interesting for us is like Nutrition, diet, cold exposure, heat exposure, all these contrast therapies. That's what really gets People interested from a human performance, athletic standpoint. Have you noticed the same for you? Do you focus that because you're in podcast? Are you sharing as much of that?

Speaker 1: 10:56

Yeah, I mean I'm really into all that stuff, right. Likewise, it's like and when I think about health, it's like some of these top tier athletes right or at the pinnacle of health, right everywhere from nutrition to like game day fueling, to like standard hydration versus game day hydration versus electrolytes, right versus, yeah, like the cold and hot therapy, like I'm really into that myself. But, yeah, I mean I think you hit the nail on the head, right, it's like when I, when I grew my falling on on LinkedIn, yeah, it was all about like for me, I almost used the business as as a way and a moat to do ridiculous things that then I could share. Like it, I almost like gas lit myself into doing ridiculous things because I'm like, oh, this content would be hilarious and it helps build the brand. So I would do like really shameless things that I don't think I would ever really do on my own unless there was like a purpose or something behind it To actually go out and do it.

Speaker 1: 11:48

So, yeah, I mean I, you know, I was running like Giveaways, product giveaways on like mid-flight on airplanes and was doing all sorts of stuff where, like, I justified it just because I was like, oh, this will help the business grow. So, you know, it was sort of like I'm mentally tricking myself, but it can be a helpful, helpful mental framework for, you know, people who are trying to get them to. You know, trying to find interesting ways to to maybe like, go viral or gain followers, but are embarrassed or feel, oh, like this is going to be super weird if I do this. Well, like you got to put yourself in the mental mindset that like it's not for you as an individual, like you're working for your brand and like you need to do what you need to do to build that brand.

Speaker 3: 12:24

Yeah, 100%. You said you're into contrast therapies. What are you doing? Who are you following? Who are those people that you consume content from?

Speaker 1: 12:32

Yeah, I mean I was. I was in on Wim Hof like four or five years ago. I went to one of his like his events in Seattle four or four and a half years ago and then I got really into it then. So I, my buddy, had a. He kept an ice tank at 32 with bath salts and I got up to doing 10 minutes 10 minutes every other day and that and that that one was like when I got up to that level, you have to like very technically reheat, like that was like if you're not reheating appropriately for about half an hour, like you will be shivering cold for hours, if not day, like it is, like it can be dangerous.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Right now I have a sauna at the gym and so nice. Almost every morning, like I do half hour workout. I always prioritize. I usually will do 20 minute sauna and then I'll fall with a seven minute. There's an outdoor shower and I'll do outdoor cold shower in the winter. That's sort of what I have access to. I'd love to get the bath, but just don't. You know, in New York City it's just harder to do that.

Speaker 2: 13:32

But yeah, that's kind of my current regiment right now.

Speaker 1: 13:35

I mean it's awesome. I feel like high. You know something you've got to do for the first month of the very warm. I don't know what are you doing?

Speaker 3: 13:43

Yeah, I try and sauna after every workout for 20 minutes. I try and keep the ice bath cold plunge for mornings or like non-workout days. I've just seen some research around that it Eliminating the inflammation. So then it doesn't necessarily help the hypertrophy factor of trying to get big muscles get huge. You know. Yeah, I'm trying to follow, you know, your huberman protocol to some degree. I don't drink coffee for the first 90 minutes. I'm trying to drink my electrolytes in the morning. You know, going for at least a nice hour-long walk every other day when I'm not working out with the dog, with the gal, so it's Nothing too groundbreaking, but like getting back into a bit more of a routine. Obviously you spend a year and a half on the road, a little tough to have schedule, probably lost at least 15 pounds of muscle. So like slowly getting that back up. Gonna, have to do some some form of long-term, long, long trip like you, but getting after that some point. I don't know whether it's a marathon, whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Yeah, and well, for me, like, like maybe we can talk about events in a couple, but I guess have you gotten into? Well, two other things I've kind of gotten into, and one is really kind of weird and this is more experimental, but the other one I mean have you gotten into a read into, like about a top of G or like fasting and that at all.

Speaker 3: 15:01

Yeah, it's hilarious. I actually just watched a video around. Well, james Smith PT. James Smith PT have you seen him on Instagram? If you just made a video with Lane by Laine Norton and Talking about how, 72 hour fast, every influencer out there is doing it right now and it's the big hot thing and they spend three days on it. Sorry, I cut you off, though he made a really good YouTube video on it, but I want to hear your thoughts before I go into it deeper.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Well, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, this could be funny, yeah, so I, so you know you also ask me who I follow. It's funny what, when I think about topics I'm really interested in, I and I don't know if this sounds like I don't know how people are gonna react to this I like to outsource my knowledge. So when I think about, okay, I'm, I love health stuff, I don't sit down and like read a lot of health stuff. I'll listen to some stuff, but like my brother Follows like devoutly, he's like really into it on Twitter. He's always following kind of like the latest people. He's always reading the research. So for me, like, what I like to do is I'll call him like once a week, once every couple weeks, I'll be like, oh, like what is new, like, and I trust him, you know, and so he's always like feeding me the things and I'm sort of letting him use his own filter and so, yeah, he's the one who kind of put me on to like autophagy and One of my buddies works on one of the leading anti-aging apps in Boston Boston, he's talked about it as well.

Speaker 1: 16:21

But yeah, I mean it's like, hey, you know, if you fast for long enough, it is, from what I understand, the, the number one way to put your body into into autophagy, right and activate I forget if they're like a autophagic cells and basically like how I've heard it talked about is is it similar to like a construction site, right, like your body's used to like moving and building and growing? And so there's all these like little workers running around and building things and Scraps are just kind of being like tossing the corner or taking out when they can and when autophagy kicks in, it basically like like the foreman comes and he's like hey, everybody, stop working. You know like we don't have the budget right now. So like just clean up and make everything like really efficient around here and so like all of like your damaged cells get replaced with brand new cells. It like clears out all the waste in your system, like in your blood.

Speaker 1: 17:11

And most recently, my brother was telling me about a study that that Harvard recently came out with and and and this was the stat line I need to look at. Do this a little bit more before I like tell people this, but the stat line is that is that one seven day fast Can reduce cancer for up to 50% across your life. Is like is like the stat line. I Don't know. I don't know. I've only ever done a three-day fast, but I'm interested in trying the seven-day fast. But that's sort of where I'm at. I'm curious to hear your, your take on this though.

Speaker 3: 17:43

The. So I will say I was a big advocate for intermittent Fasting time, restricted fat whatever you want to call that, that was nice. When you're in a calorie, it Comes down to calorie deficit Is what I've gathered from doing my research because, again, like you, I'm not a doctor. I bring on individuals like yourself, high performers, athletes. I learned from them and then I try and apply some of this stuff that I learned to my life. I was listening to James Smith, pt Lane Norton's video.

Speaker 3: 18:12

Basically, if you do that 72 hour fast, you are Eliminating three days worth of eating. So there is a top of G. That is occurring when that happens. But you could have the same cell response by having a caloric restriction over the same seven-day period. So let's say, for example, you're eating 3,000 calories a day over seven days. You know 21,000 calories, right? If you were to eliminate three days of that, train at three days of eating completely and Then you stay 3,000, you're gonna end up with whatever minus 9,000 worth of calories, right? Yes, so I was in total. So instead of taking three days out completely, you could have a 2,500 calorie diet instead of 3,000. So you're taking 500 calories off per day and you're actually going to eliminate a similar amount of food over the course of those seven days. So when you expand your time horizon to a weekly instead of a daily caloric intake, to a weekly, the amount that you're actually eliminating isn't as much Over that time span and you're still getting the same cell regeneration again.

Speaker 3: 19:17

That is what I heard from that video. I'll have to click it in here and send it to you so you can review it. But basically he was like James Smith. He's like a UK fitness influencer. I'm gonna I've been working on getting him on and one of the things that he talks about he's like dude, I'm miserable. He's like this is the worst three days of my life. Like I had to sit there with my bloke and my gal who are eating food, my dog's eating food and I'm sitting there with an empty plate, can't do anything. So he's like them. The mental aspect for him wasn't worth it, but like it seems like from your reaction, you felt differently.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Yeah, dude, honestly I didn't I will. First of all, I'm like into endurance sports and like I love the idea of going and doing a three-day fast, just because it's challenging and because, like I Think it just like mentally puts you in the space like you just you just have to be mentally Fortified to really go through stuff like that, and then I think that stuff helps with, you know, building a business and when times are really tough, for doing sort of different, these different athletic feats, right and like that to me is like it's like mental training, like I like love it. So, for me, one of my well, yeah, two of my goals this year around health, actually, what are? I think I have a couple more than that too. I'll actually pull them up here live. Oh, we got a list.

Speaker 3: 20:30

Look at this. This is full MFM style. You're like. You came prepared.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Okay, okay, so well, okay, so, my, my, my two explicit health ones. I have some other like broader ones, but is yeah, I want to do a five-day fast this year and then, and then, yeah, I want to, I want to do a seven plus day cycle race, which, which is the one I just signed up for. And then you know the other ones as well. I'll are slightly off. One I want to compete. I want to compete on a professional level in backgammon this year. So I'm like, I'm like I'm like obsessed with backgammon. I don't know if you've ever had a backgammon player on no, what is it?

Speaker 3: 21:10

explain to your? What is it?

Speaker 1: 21:13

Oh man, okay, so. So backgammon is arguably, it's it's probably most notably the second, the second Basically oldest game to ever, still to ever be invented and still be around, behind chess although it's it's, it's much simpler than chess and and it basically it's it's a probability game. It's really like a polymath game. So it's you roll dice, you move pieces around the board and, like I don't know, without having a board in front of you, that that's kind of where I'll leave it. But it is just like a really fun Strategic polymath game. It's all probability based and so it's a ton of like math and like complex understanding.

Speaker 1: 21:50

But I'm literally addicted. I looked at my phones at my phone time yesterday. On average, I think I spent in the past seven days I think I spent nine hours playing backgammon. I'm just like I play it before bed, like I play it when I'm on the toilet and I am like I'm I like why I want to get up to a certain grand rank, because they have certain grand ranks but so anyways, yeah, yeah, those are those are my goals for the year.

Speaker 1: 22:21

But yeah, I don't know, I guess I guess I'm gonna have to look in into this, into the, into the Autophagy around, more like intermittent fasting, and see if it's similar.

Speaker 3: 22:28

But I read some different stuff, but it's just, it's hard to know, like, what to really trust this is the state that our Society is in, though, because you can pull up to Instagram videos that say, one that says cow's milk is good for you and one that says cows milk is bad for you. Same for red meat, same for every other substance on the planet. The other thing is that we're all different and unique. I'm sitting here in Kelowna where there's a couple feet of snow right now, and every human being on earth is a snowflake, and when I say that, I mean like we're all unique and there's all little differences to us, and some people can drink cows milk and others can have red meat and others can't. Are there Likely hoods that some of those foods you can consume more of and you'll probably be better suited and better Living a healthier lifestyle? Absolutely, but I think, at the end of the day, like you got to find out what works best for you, and for some people, fasting might be good. The mental fortitude I will 100% agree with you on like that to me, is where the ice bath, the sauna, like those things, really come into play. And then To your point, when you're building a business, when you get rejected on your 50th cold call, whatever it is, it doesn't seem as bad.

Speaker 3: 23:39

You bring up this board game that you're playing nine hours a day on average. Do you know the game that Jimmy Dalton, mr Beast is what was? Do you know the game that he plays all the time? He like he flew in the top players from across the world To come and play and he like created the championship for it. I don't know the name of it, I just remember hearing this. He's it's this. It's a board game. There's no world championship for it. He but he made it, he pulled it in and he won it. So he put up like 50 grand, got all these guys to fly in. Look at this. I'm not kidding. This is the craziest thing. I Can't remember the name.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Okay is it is, it is it dude.

Speaker 3: 24:16

Yes, thank you, thank you, yeah, I'm just not yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:22

That's kind of unreal. No, I haven't heard about that. No, it's definitely different than that.

Speaker 3: 24:26

But now you're gonna make the championship too. You're gonna do the same thing.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Well, we'll see the the best player. All like a lot of the best players in the world live in New York. So I'm like kind of my next step is I want to like get in there and like take some lessons from them, and then I just need to join, like join as an amateur professional in an open circuit.

Speaker 3: 24:42

Dude. I want to see some content created from it.

Speaker 1: 24:46

Dude, I will. I've been. I've been a little content shy recently because I'm trying to, I'm trying to sort of finalize the Transition of forage before I like kind of come back out and but I'll be back on some of the platform soon. But, dude, on the nutrition front to like you know, I and you briefly mentioned this at the beginning, but in 2019, you know I are for 18 months starting in 2019 I spent a month at a time trying different nutritional regiments and sort of documenting how I felt it. I wish I'd done it a bit more scientific and like it was getting my blood tested and stuff, because that would have been really cool.

Speaker 1: 25:18

But you buy and far but yeah, biggest takeaway is like everybody just has to do that for themselves. People would come up to me and be like, oh, like what? What diet should I be on? Or how should I eat? I'm like, honestly, like you just need to go through that yourself and and really like it's really like how do you feel? Like right, like like if you want to go super scientific and get all these things tested, sure, but like how do you feel at the end of the day? And like how's your mental energy and how are you physically and are you feeling motivated and and I think it's just really valuable to go through that Yourself instead of just assuming kind of a Western diet or eating whatever sort of in front of you or is offered at the store?

Speaker 3: 25:52

Yeah, I mean, the Western diet is definitely not the one to be to be going after first Foremost. I'd probably say that for certain, have you?

Speaker 1: 25:58

been um, have you? Have you? Have you seen the Netflix show where they take like like the two twins? No, I.

Speaker 3: 26:04

Is that the new one? The new one like the? I thought it was more like vegan, vegetarian based, or is it two twins?

Speaker 1: 26:10

Well, so what they do is like is like they, they they take identical twins and then they put them on very specific eating regiments the same eating regiments and then, and then they're actually measuring, like blood and all these other impacts on them. I haven't started yet, but I was. I was gonna start it this weekend, but it looks pretty interesting. It's like a, you know, it's a pretty good look at basically testing that with you know, I identical, identical twins, right to see.

Speaker 3: 26:32

I remember when I I did this like Mark Wahlberg challenge for a week and I was going vegan for it and like pea protein I got. I got my blood taken and pea protein did not agree with me at all. Would never have known. It was also probably because I was crushing that instead of my way and like body wasn't used to it. But again, you don't know until you learn these things out and you find out more for you. What, like you said, you went through a bunch every month. What were you testing? What did you notice? How'd you fall in love with much?

Speaker 1: 27:01

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was one of the outcomes. So, yes, every 30 days I try something different, so I did, you know, like vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, gluten-free, like carnivore diet, a whole 30 diet. Like keto, like like actually a clean keto Akinsen diet. There were some other interesting ones. One of them I went off of like all caffeine and supplements.

Speaker 3: 27:26

Was there one that you noticed the best? You know well so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:30

So my takeaway is the. So where I felt the absolute like peak you know where I was just like dialed in, like, feel like from just a peer, like health standpoint, honestly, was was was when I was in ketosis, or like, or like dialed in the whole 30. Oh, okay. However, they were so challenging, like like there was so much like mental A road, just challenge of just like I couldn't live a normal life. It was like, oh, I can't do that or I'm not gonna do that Because I'm doing this challenge right now.

Speaker 1: 28:02

And so you know, one of my other takeaways as well is like the shittiest part of that 18 months was when I would flip diets, so be after 30 days, usually take about you know, 10 to 14 days to kind of get up to speed with my body. My body be all weird, like I'd feel like shit, you know, and then I'd feel good and then I would do it again. And so my takeaway is like all right, if, if, if something doesn't align with your lifestyle and it's not super long term, don't fucking do it like it's it's. It's not a good use of your time to do something for 30 days, 45 days, like you should go and find like how you should kind of eat in perpetuity where, like you're gonna feel the best. For me, like and this is gonna be surprised to no one like the overall kind of diet where I was super stoked on was was just whole food eating.

Speaker 1: 28:45

So it's like vegetables, fruits, grains, meats, fish ground breaking stuff legumes, nuts yeah, I know right like, and that's where I felt really really good. And then the month where I supplemented with mushrooms for a month and got off of kind of caffeine and other supplements, that month was awesome. And then I really stayed on the mushroom train and like, have always supplemented with with mushrooms ever since and have gotten really into the science and Really I don't do you supplement with mushrooms at all.

Speaker 3: 29:13

I don't. I crushed a pack of forage a while back and Got my mom eating shrimps for breakfast, so she was prior pretty fired up for about that. But I don't supplement with mushrooms. What should I be taking Parker?

Speaker 1: 29:25

Yeah, I mean it depends. I think people ask that question. Think if you're gonna take any mushroom line, you should take turkey tail. Oh no, like linesman is kind of like popular. It's like the cognitive health. Mushroom Turkey tail like is legitimately being used as a cancer treatment around the world.

Speaker 1: 29:45

And like showing, like Showing really positive signals, like in clinical trials, and it's a fucking mushroom and it's basically just like incredibly Anti-inflammatory and it's just like kills cancer cells in your body. So that's kind of the one where I'm like it's sort of a catch-all, like I think. I think it's just like good to have in your diet. Yeah, I mean, lion's mane is awesome, like it really helps a lot with like neuro generation, kind of like neural cell growth and and, you know, helps with with neuro plasticity as well, you know you can kind of go down the line.

Speaker 2: 30:18

I'm also.

Speaker 1: 30:19

I am a big proponent of psychedelic mushrooms. I don't know what what your takes are on that, but I haven't really shared it with the audience.

Speaker 3: 30:26

I'm definitely not opposed to them. I've seen some of the benefits and I know that from a PTSD standpoint, there's research being done there around mental health. Like I Am an advocate for things that work and I am not an advocate for Things being done the same way they've been done for years because that's the way we did it in the past and I feel like both our education, our health and Even like our food and beverage industry are kind of all in Auto repeat because that's the way things have been done in the past and I'm sure you've had to deal with that from a business brand-building standpoint and, like for me, I would love to be able to Bring people on, like yourself, to this show to be able to share with people that the fact that turkey tail mushroom is Proving to be beneficial and taking away cancer cells compared to other stuff that we've been doing, that clearly doesn't work. How did I answer that?

Speaker 1: 31:28

I think answer it. Well, I'll leave that one. Have you seen? There was a movie that that recently came out on Netflix like drug hustlers Love it. Okay, you saw it?

Speaker 1: 31:39

Yeah dude, I was like okay, like this I was like a lot of like mainstream people should just watch this movie and understand like why and how, like Big drugs and big pharma is a thing and how it like how everybody gets hooked on them. But I'll leave that there. I'll leave that to the audience to go check out on their own. Dude, there is. There is one hot take that that I want to raise, that I want to see if, if you're, if you've ever done this or Anybody on your show has ever done this. But I've been starting to do this kind of in some training and I will say I got the idea and most of the time when I do it, I I have consumed marijuana ahead of my workout. I'm a huge. That like really works for me. I like get access to certain muscular control. I don't necessarily have my breathing gets like really dialed. I can like tunnel in on like a long run on, like a lift. For me it's like really therapeutic.

Speaker 2: 32:32

But smoking it is. I have been.

Speaker 1: 32:35

I the roar. Okay, honestly either or.

Speaker 1: 32:40

Yeah, and I started this. I did this for the first time this past summer when I was training, or this past spring when I was training for a fireman and I had a long run and I'm like obsessed with my heart rate data, like check my resting heart rate every day, like I check it during all the runs. I'm a huge run of zone to training. You know me my brother and I like we talk a lot about zone training. I've also been intrigued by recent research around zone one training. We don't have to get into that here.

Speaker 3: 33:06

No, let's do it, dude, I love it.

Speaker 1: 33:10

I started to test on runs, closing my eyes For like kind of as long as possible. Where I would like close them for like one, two, three seconds I'm, I'd flutter them open and then re close and like flutter open to like assess and then re close. Obviously like you can't see this in the city, right, like I was running like on a path, like around the lake and People were looking at me and like what the fuck they're like it could be dangerous. Like I'm not necessarily saying everybody should do it, but I started, dude, when I was doing that, I was able to drop my heart rate.

Speaker 1: 33:44

Keep the same pace on runs, draw my heart rate by like four to six beats per minute and like Holding closing my eyes and like it like relaxes my shoulders. It had this like relaxing effect on my body and most recently, now that it's winter I'm not running outside anymore. I'll do it while I row on the Erg. I'm like a huge, I love rowing on the Erg. Dude, same thing. I'll keep my eyes closed the entire time and I can bring my my heart rate down. Keep similar pace by like yeah, I don't know three to eight, three to six kind of beats per minute. Damn really interesting.

Speaker 3: 34:18

Good, that's Okay and then so is that the. The Parker Wilson protocol, then, is a little Little Mary Jane before the run or workout. And then what's post-workout Like? Is that every time you work out, like to take me through this, is this or is this before long runs, or what's the?

Speaker 1: 34:35

It's, it's kind of a treat. Yeah, it's like it's like, oh, like a big day, or like I have a lot of time, you know, like that's, that's what it is for me. It's not every day, because I'm usually working out like in the morning before work and I'm just kind of like dialed in right. It's like I wake up, I jog to the gym like I do 30 minute work, I do the 20 minutes on, I do the five ten minute cold shower, I jog home, I make a smoothie, like I, I walk to work, I work for half an hour and then I have a coffee and all the whole while I'm like I have to finish like two water bottles during the two water, like 64 fluid ounces of water during the workout and then I'm just drinking water and basically coffee in the morning, water, and then water transitions into kombucha and water into the afternoon and and then I eat dinner and like that's like my day.

Speaker 3: 35:18

I love it very cool, and so have you noticed that incorporating this routine has allowed you to Take Advantage of the additional time that it provides you by not having to think about oh, what am I doing today, what am I eating like? Because I feel like that's an underappreciated aspect of having routines having schedules for Athletes, entrepreneurs, business owners, etc.

Speaker 1: 35:43

Dude, dude, I found well, we talked about the fasting. When I did the, I did a three-day fast, like this past fall. I had so much time. You're right.

Speaker 2: 35:53

You know, like crazy.

Speaker 1: 35:55

I was like whoa, like I'm getting so much fun today. I will also say when I was, when I did the three-day fast, I like kind of like hit pause a lot of working out or was doing light stuff or walking so that there's some time back there too, but like, yeah, I mean not even thinking about eating, sitting down, about eating, prepping meals, like that's definitely like I couldn't agree anymore. I think anybody sees that one. Once they start to get there, I do imagine you know a lot of people are lifting. I feel like our nervous about oh, I'm not eating as many calories and getting protein throughout the day, and you know, I guess I don't know a whole lot about that. I'm not one to sort of speak on that.

Speaker 3: 36:30

The. I actually found that if you, if you're able to plan accordingly, mainly the fasting didn't work. When I'm a year and a half on the road, right, not knowing where you're sleeping that night, where you're getting food, etc. When you did like the 12 to 8 that I was doing, where I was, 16 hour window not eating, I actually would work out right before and I felt amazing because I was fasted tons of energy, mental acuity was sharp. And then you come in post-workout you feel good, you fuel up.

Speaker 3: 36:57

Not gonna put up your best PRs, you're not gonna gain crazy amounts of muscle just because you don't have enough time and it's hard to consume that much, but do fasting. There's so much still unknown. That's the other thing. Right, like read the tip of it and you're doing research, literally by just testing your own body, right and what comes back Subjectively. And that's better than what's out on PubMed right now. Frankly, because they're all controlled studies, they don't necessarily look exactly at how those go after a four week or an eight week window. There's a lot of things that come after that four week honeymoon phase, right, good and bad. But, dude, I want it like. Your mushroom granola blend is phenomenal and I want to highlight it and I want to get it into people's hands. You guys are also pulling like a hundred thousand visitors on a monthly basis to your website, like you guys got to be doing pretty well selling a lot of granola mushrooms.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Unfortunately, not a lot of that's converting, because a lot of it's educational. On mushrooms, I mean, I don't know, man, we're doing okay.

Speaker 1: 37:58

We've kind of hit bars on the business because we're selling it. So, look, the consumer game is so hard. I mean we were selling well but like the margin structure is what's brutal, Like we just couldn't price it appropriately and have a good margin structure and that's why it's like I'm kind of getting out of the game. It's like the future there is just such a challenging uphill battle but it's too bad. And you know, I'm still really impassioned about all like the food and the health and yeah, I mean, yeah, I think we make a great product. You know we're talking with one potential acquirer who actually, you know, acquired an old manufacturer of ours and like they're that product quality with them. It was just unbelievable. So yeah, I'm obviously a huge, huge proponent of it and I'm sad to kind of see the transition. But yeah, it did kind of just need to happen.

Speaker 3: 38:48

Are you staying on the mycological society as a board member?

Speaker 1: 38:53

Dude, I transitioned but yeah, I sat on the board of the largest mushroom club in the United States for a couple of years and then I've also. Last year, two years ago, I got certified to be a psilocybin peer supporter. So, like people who want to use psilocybin medicinally, you know like, I've at least gone through a form of training to be able to sit there and help someone, think about how to approach it and think about how to source it and then actually kind of you know, prepare for it, go through with it, reintegrate back into the world after those experiences. So yeah, I'm definitely still, you know, interested and enveloped in the mushroom space. Love to mushroom forage You've guys got, you have great foraging up where you are.

Speaker 3: 39:31

Yeah, you got to tell me where to go. What do I got to do?

Speaker 1: 39:33

Dude, I have this like dream right now of moving to Vancouver in the next few years, and if I move up there I will totally mob.

Speaker 3: 39:41

I'm down, I'm all yo. I don't like buying mushrooms at the grocery store. I'd rather go pick them in my backyard and probably taste better and they probably have more nutrition to them too right.

Speaker 1: 39:52

They would dude yeah, 1000%, all the above.

Speaker 3: 39:56

I'm dude, I've. I feel like we could chop it up for hours here. I personally am infatuated at your endurance efforts as well. You've done Iron man half, iron man marathon, you do some. You got a seven day cycle coming up. How do you prepare for that when you also are trying to run a business Like I can't imagine? You've got your schedule dialed in. We found out what you do from wake up, your smoothie, sauna, cold, etc. Routine, but how are you able to maximize your time every single day?

Speaker 1: 40:32

Dude. Yeah, I like I went through this crazed period last year where I became like obsessed with productivity and I wrote this like product, my like productivity white paper one day in like a rage. Like I can get in these like rage moods the rage is maybe not the right word because it sounds negative but I was just like so jazzed up on energy and what I found, dude, when I was training for like the Iron man, you know, the half or even the full, and it's like it's a big time commitment and it's like you got to show up every day I that period I was. That period may have been when I was the most dialed at work because, like the work is so intense, you know, when you're trying to build something your own and you're in entrepreneurship, and it can be really stressful, but when you go to an equally stressful activity, that's completely different and it's like physical versus mental. I found it to be sort of this like unlock.

Speaker 1: 41:22

Personally, we're like it enables me to be so focused on training while I'm training because I'm like holy shit, I'm like so exhausted and stressed out about the other thing, like it feels so good to get so engulfed, and then you're like, wow, that's such a hard work out. And then you like go back to work and you're feeling like refreshed and invigorated and while you're at work, you're like cool, I just need to get all these things done because I don't have a lot of time to like sit here and mess around, like you just need to be so dialed and like so focused in and then it's just like you know, the switch flips and then you're like back on the other side and I like I like loved that, like me and like a happy place is like intense training and intense work and you're just like so dialed on, like the schedule and the calendar. Obviously, you know real life is not that straightforward, but I loved it, man, and honestly, like some of the best work like I've ever done.

Speaker 3: 42:06

I wish it was like that all the time. Dude, I'm like as you're describing it. I'm like I'm getting so fired up just because it's like oh yeah, you don't have any other. Like stressors, you get rid of all the fluff. It's like this is what I'm doing for work, this is what I'm doing for training, and that's it. And you're like shit. It's like wow, life gets really simple when you have clear goals. Dude it, so does dude.

Speaker 1: 42:28

And and and, when you like cut down on time. It's really like, okay, I don't know about time, like I can't just be fucking around, like I have to do, like these three things like these are the three things I absolutely have to do are super important, like so I, yeah, I love it, man.

Speaker 3: 42:42

What's been your biggest, biggest unlock over the years between entrepreneurship, between athletics, between mushrooms like if you were a 17 year old or a 21 year old listening to this podcast right now, whether you're an NCAA, a high school athlete or someone transitioning into the real world like what would you be suggesting getting people to do? Exploring?

Speaker 1: 43:06

I think it's. You know, I think everybody like or at least myself, I guess I'll just speak for myself Like you're raised and you know you're raised around a certain set of expectations and I think it's easy to like hear your mom or someone be like wow, like you could be really great or like you could really do these awesome things, and it's like sure, like you see that movies, like people talk about it, and I think actually proving it to yourself is a lot more challenging. And I think this is different than arrogance. Like arrogance is just being like I know I can do everything and you're kind of just like, haven't even really proven it to yourself, but for some reason, like, like you just think you're the man right.

Speaker 1: 43:44

I think for me, like when I the Iron man was, was the unlock for me because it was something that I signed up for like on a whim, and I signed up basically because I was newer to Seattle and I, like some guys I liked were doing it. We originally signed up for the half. The half got canceled because of COVID. We had to defer. Really cool, let's do the race next year. It was only a fold the following year and we were like, oh damn, like damn, and we kind of were like bucket, should we just do it? It's a year out, we'll be fine. We were like, yeah, and we just did it.

Speaker 1: 44:13

And I remember like buying and being like whoa, like I am terrified, like the idea of swimming two and a half miles, biking 112 and running a marathon is wildly daunting. And I'd never even ran a marathon, you know, and I never, never even ran a half marathon. I never biked more than 25 miles. And so I think the idea of like, when you go out and do something that like you actually believe, is terrifying and you're like I don't know how I'm going to do this, but you just kind of have some faith and you put in the time and I put in the training, and then you show up on game day and it was 107 degrees out during that Ironman. That Ironman had had the most DNFs, the most do not finishes out of any Ironman race in history. It was like it was like an absurd. It was like an absurd percentage, like 36% it was. It was 111. Off of the asphalt on the bike I watched three or four people literally collapse from heat exhaustion on the bike, crash their fucking bike into the ground. It was nuts.

Speaker 1: 45:14

I just remember like getting up and you just like are so intimidated, like you are like holy crap, like two days before, you're like oh my god, like well, at this point, like if I haven't put the training in, like it's going to show up, and like I've told so many people about doing this race, like my family's here, like like I, if I like die, like it's gonna be incredibly embarrassing. And that was such a driver for me while I was training. But I still like just didn't believe I was going to do it. Like it was, it was like unfathomable.

Speaker 1: 45:39

And when you told people you were doing an Ironman, people were like yeah, right, like that's fucking insane. And then, like you go out and you do it and like I did it felt great, finish it and was like damn, you know, like if I thought that was like the most absurd, crazy thing ever and I did that and was like that was like it was hard, but it's not like I like crawled across the finish line, like I finished, was like I feel I feel okay, like yeah, of course I'm like super sore, like I'm tired, but I'm like I wasn't dead, you know, and was like wow, like for me, that was the unlock, where you're like like am I just boxing myself in by being like terrified of these things and be like I can never do that? And then you just like don't even think about it, right? And so that's why, you know, when I think about my goals, it's like every year I wanna try things that like are kinda scare me, like doing like a five or a seven day fast. I'm like, damn, do that.

Speaker 1: 46:29

Like a year ago, two years ago, I would have been like that's fucking crazy. Like a seven day fast is only shit. That like Gandhi does you know like who could do that. But now it's like, yeah, I still think that's gonna be like pretty wild, but I know I could do it, and when I do it I'm gonna feel more empowered. So I guess the message is like you should find things and I like to find them in physical feats and physical endeavors right Like the 10 minutes at 32 degrees was another one for me or like you do that and you're like 99.9% of other people would think that this is absolutely crazy and probably never even attempt it, and like that is like such a mental unlock.

Speaker 3: 47:06

I think doing extraordinary things on a consistent basis allows them to become second nature, and then they almost don't become extraordinary for you, but they are for everyone else, right?

Speaker 1: 47:18

It's well said, well put.

Speaker 3: 47:20

Hey that's the power of being able to listen as you're talking, and it just came to me, I think it also. I have to attribute that some of that to mouth taping as I sleep. Do you do that?

Speaker 1: 47:31

Oh, dude, yeah, I can't believe we didn't even talk about it. Dude, my resting heart rate it's always. I can get at least like I don't know at least three beats per minute, like lower, when I've got the mouth tape on. I'm a huge believer of the mouth tape breathing. I love it.

Speaker 3: 47:46

Yeah, I'm a huge fan. Have you read James Nester's book Breath?

Speaker 1: 47:49

Yeah, that's once I read it I was like every night.

Speaker 3: 47:53

haven't missed it, I have it right here VO2 tape I use. They sent me a ton of stuff. It's the best Like dude, all these little things. But again, if you were to tell your mom or your aunt five years ago, yeah, I'm gonna tape my mouth every night before I go to sleep.

Speaker 1: 48:08

They'd look at you like you had four heads.

Speaker 1: 48:12

It's insane, dude. Yeah, it's, I completely, completely agree. And I, you know, to our Convara earlier, like I think that's similar around, like psychedelics or some of these other medicines, right when, like for Christmas two years ago, I gave everybody in my family like 30 micro, like micro dose, like sets of 30 micro doses. Everybody in my family got one for Christmas. My parents were like what? And I'm like no, like super cool, like they all knew I was in a mushroom, but it certainly pushed the boundary that year. What?

Speaker 3: 48:41

were the results of that? Any positive feedback?

Speaker 1: 48:44

Dude, my dude, my mom, I don't I don't know how much my parents have used it. I keep kind of checking in. I work with my mom every year to do her annual goals and like we check in quarterly and she's really gotten, she like wants to like find more things of joy and she's really gotten into drawing and so she's going to try, she's going to try micro dosing while drawing. That's kind of going to be her like thing. But, dude, two years ago my mom was like this is crazy. I don't do drugs. Blah, blah, blah. This can't believe. You didn't even give this to me. Now my mom's like really open to the idea, you know, and like it's like oh yeah, that could be cool and like so, hey, it's amazing what happens when you have an open mind.

Speaker 3: 49:15

You clearly have an open mind, parker Wills, and I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. Yo, let's talk about your, your pod work here before I let you go, and where people should be sourcing you out for X work, for pod work, where whatever else, for endurance training. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:32

Well, quick, quick plug for endurance training. I don't know there's a. I forget the author's name. I gotta look him up, but the name of the book is called. It's called the, the purple patch club, I think. Let me double check yeah, purple patch fitness.

Speaker 1: 49:46

Purple patch is, I think, is the name of the book. It's basically a guy and he coaches like senior executives in triathlon training. I've never met him he this is the sponsor at all but I this was a major unlock for me when I started training for the Ironman to think about nutrition. Oh my God, it's gonna kill me. What's his name? I don't know. If you look up purple patch fitness, you'll find him. I've got to pull it up right now, but that is a huge place for me, matt Dixon, to look to look at nutrition. It's getting in touch with me, linkedin Park Girls and, yeah, I mean I'm building kind of in the podcast space.

Speaker 1: 50:23

So basically, I've collected one of the largest podcast databases in the world through lots of different web scraping, enriching it in a lot of different ways, and then we run AI over it to basically help determine like where different target, what podcasts different target audiences, their target markets, are listening to.

Speaker 1: 50:40

And so, david, let's say, like you want to go on and you're like, hey, I want to. You know, I want to get in front of female collegiate athletes, right, get interviewed on those shows. So, like, we would plug in your information into our database. It would automatically like prioritize and identify the appropriate podcast we could get identified on, and then it automates all of these cold outreach sequences to the host. And part of our value proposition is, you know, we understand that like to grow a podcast, you need, like me, to leave this podcast, share this episode, tell people about it, and so our clients who pay us to get on podcasts, they commit to sharing the episodes with their audience. And after each episode, we create three, like three short form co-branded videos so like my branding and the athletes podcast branding and then they'll commit to sending it out to their email newsletter, post it on LinkedIn, et cetera. So we're trying to create more of like a win-win scenario with podcast hosts who also need to have guests on their show.

Speaker 3: 51:34

That's brilliant, and then in two months I'll get the thanks for having me on the show. No, on LinkedIn, right.

Speaker 1: 51:41

Yes, dude, absolutely yeah, I plugged that in. No, we don't have any of that set up, but I swear.

Speaker 3: 51:46

I saw one of your LinkedIn posts said that you would. Every time you come on someone's show, two months later you send them a thank. You know, you put it in a reminder.

Speaker 1: 51:54

Oh, oh well, whenever I go on a show typically, I mean, I keep a pretty detailed CRM.

Speaker 2: 52:01

So it's like you've been in my CRM for like two years.

Speaker 1: 52:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's just like, oh, like I like David, and so it's like you know, two months later it's just like hey, I think you're like hey, thinking about you, I don't know Like it's just nice and building your networks important.

Speaker 3: 52:15

Dude, I couldn't agree with you more. I can't thank you enough for this conversation. Hey, we'll be bringing you on again in a couple of years, if not sooner, and we'll chop it up more about mushrooms. See if you're still running in the dark blindfolded with your mouth closed. Hey, thanks so much, Parker Dude, I appreciate your time.

Speaker 1: 52:33

Yeah, thanks David. Thanks Fernaa.