I'm Scott Lynch, host of The Motivated Mind, a Spotify top 100 Health & Fitness podcast with over 6 million downloads. Each week, I bring you practical and tactical insights on how to master your mindset and optimize your happiness. No fluff, no BS, no filter, just a swift kick in the mind. If you like learning about things like philosophy, psychology, lifestyle hacks, entrepreneurship, or dodging existential dread, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Scott Lynch, host of The Motivated Mind, a Spotify top 100 Health & Fitness podcast with over 6 million downloads. Each week, I bring you practical and tactical insights on how to master your mindset and optimize your happiness. No fluff, no BS, no filter, just a swift kick in the mind. If you like learning about things like philosophy, psychology, lifestyle hacks, entrepreneurship, or dodging existential dread, then you're in the right place.
Remember when summer felt like it lasted forever and your biggest problem was deciding between riding your bike or eating a popsicle? Yeah… me neither. These days, time feels like it’s on fast-forward, and no matter how many productivity hacks or morning routines we try, the days keep flying by. In this episode, I dive into why our perception of time changes as we get older, and more importantly, what we can do to slow it down.
Do you wake up feeling like you got hit by a bus, drag through the day in a low-energy fog, and wonder why coffee doesn’t seem to help anymore? I’ve been there. After months of overthinking, self-experimentation, and blaming everything from gluten to the alignment of the stars, I finally realized the truth: I was skipping the basics. In this episode, I share my own journey of figuring out why I was always tired and the surprising solution that had been right in front of me the whole time.
For years, I bought into the hustle culture lie: work harder, do more, and success will follow. But after cutting my schedule in half and focusing on fewer, higher-impact tasks, I discovered something surprising: slowing down actually amplified my creativity, focus, and results. In this episode, I unpack how lowering the bar, embracing slow productivity, and letting go of unnecessary expectations saved my sanity and helped me produce better work.
Most of us live as if we just plan hard enough, we’ll finally “figure it all out.” The perfect calendar, the flawless morning routine, the 5-year plan, detailed down to what socks we’ll wear on Thursdays. But life doesn’t work that way. I learned this seven hours and forty minutes into the hardest Spartan race in the world, after thirty obstacles, thousands of feet of elevation, and more burpees than any human should endure. In this episode, I share why certainty is an illusion, how over-planning becomes procrastination, and why clarity doesn’t come from thinking.
Most people ease into challenges. A 5K. Maybe a 10K. I skipped all that and went straight for the hardest Spartan race in the world: 21K, thirty obstacles, seven thousand feet of elevation, and a whole lot of burpees if I failed. In this episode, I break down six months of training, the gear I tested, and what this race taught me about discipline, minimalism, and saying “yes” before fear talks you out of it.
We’ve all been told to set big goals. Run a marathon. Write a book. Launch a YouTube channel by June (still waiting on that one). The idea is simple: dream big, chase it, and life will magically fall into place. But here’s the problem: goals often do the exact opposite. They pile on guilt, create impossible deadlines, and leave you wondering if your treadmill is just a $1,200 clothing rack. In this episode, I break down why goals might be holding you back and what actually works better.
For years, I thought the goal in life was to be happy. All the time. If I wasn’t smiling, laughing, or journaling about gratitude while sipping my $7 oat latte, something was broken. So I stacked every hack I could find: affirmations, meditation, cold showers. Once, I even did them all before 9 am, like I was auditioning for a self-help infomercial. And guess what? I felt worse. In this episode, I break down why chasing happiness 24/7 is the fastest way to feel miserable, why “good vibes only” culture backfires, and what it really means to live a good life.
Ask someone how they’re doing, and odds are they’ll say, “Busy.” At some point, busyness became the ultimate adult humble brag, like flashing your Pokémon card collection, but with Google Calendar invites. In this episode, I break down the hidden cost of filling every square inch of your day, and why it might be quietly killing your best work.
We all know the drill: the alarm blares, you hit snooze, and somehow the day has already started on the wrong foot. So I decided to see what would happen if I quit my alarm clock for an entire month. In this episode, I share what I learned about waking up naturally, getting better sleep, and how letting go of the beeping tyranny of alarms actually improved my mornings, my productivity, and my sanity.
We all want to get better, but where do you even start? On Monday, I broke down the worst habits, the ones guaranteed to make your life a dumpster fire. So naturally, this week I’m flipping the script. In this episode, I rank the best habits for self-improvement, or at least the ones Instagram swears will change your life. Are they actually game-changers, or just another excuse to buy a $50 water bottle?
We all have habits that shape our lives, some helpful, some… not so much. In this episode, I rank the worst possible habits in a tier list, diving into what makes them truly destructive, why we keep falling for them, and what that says about the way we live. Think of it as a cautionary guide to what not to do if you actually want to get anywhere.
We live in the most connected time in human history, video calls across the world, instant messages, and same-day delivery for just about anything we want. And yet we’ve also become the loneliest society ever. How did that happen? In this episode, I explore why modern life has left so many of us feeling isolated, what author Johann Hari discovered while investigating the root causes of depression and anxiety, and how rebuilding real human connection might be the antidote we’ve been missing.
Intermittent fasting isn’t a diet; it’s about when you eat, not what you eat. For the last two years, I’ve been unintentionally doing a 16-hour fast every day. I didn’t plan it, and I definitely didn’t expect it to stick. So I decided to dive into the latest science and expert opinions to see what’s really going on. Is fasting the secret to better health, or just another overhyped trend?
I love organization. Maybe it’s the minimalist in me, or the perfectionist, but there’s something deeply satisfying about turning chaos into order. The problem is, most organizing advice online seems designed for people with infinite time, money, and storage space (and no kids). In this episode, I share seven simple, realistic things my wife and I actually do to keep our home clean, tidy, and functional, without it becoming a full-time job.
At some point, self-care went from drinking water and getting enough sleep to sticking coffee where the sun doesn’t shine. Literally. The global self-care market ballooned from $10 billion in 2014 to over $450 billion by 2020, and along the way, wellness became a full-time job. From 4:30 a.m. wake-ups to skincare routines that require a chemistry degree, we’ve officially overcomplicated the art of taking care of ourselves. In this episode, I react to some of the most viral “self-improvement” TikToks and reels, unpacking the absurdity, and asking a simple question: when did growth stop being… simple?
Dreams: the place where your punches are only half as effective, all your teeth fall out, and you can only run away from bad guys in slow motion. But can you actually hack your dreams and control what happens in there? In this episode, I dive into my experiment with lucid dreaming, the science, the surprises, and the reality of trying to take the reins while you sleep.
Most productivity advice focuses on fancy apps, hacks, or endless to-do lists. But real productivity? It’s about understanding how we actually work, the traps we fall into, and setting up simple rules that help you get real work done without the burnout. In this episode, I share four productivity rules that reshaped how I approach projects, plan my week, and keep moving forward, even when life throws curveballs.
Ever feel like your brain just isn’t working the way it should? Like you’re stuck in dumb dumb mode and can’t quite get yourself unstuck? That was me not long ago, mentally drained, unmotivated, kind of lost, and feeling like my IQ was leaking out of my ears. In this episode, I share how I turned things around, rebuilt my mental energy, and found a way to feel sharper and more focused every single day.
Most of us measure our lives with a single metric: money, career, or some arbitrary idea of success. But what if there was a simpler way to see the bigger picture? In this episode, I share a tool I’ve been using that changed how I think about success, happiness, and stress, and why tracking what really matters might just change everything.
Ever feel like everyone else has their life together except you? Well, you’re not alone. In this episode, I break down the seven steps that helped me go from feeling like a hot mess express to, well, slightly less of a mess. No hacks promising to 10x your life overnight, just practical steps, awkward honesty, and a reminder that getting it together is less about buying a $50 water bottle and more about doing the simple stuff that actually works.
I'm Scott Lynch, host of The Motivated Mind, a Spotify top 100 Health & Fitness podcast with over 6 million downloads. Each week, I bring you practical and tactical insights on how to master your mindset and optimize your happiness. No fluff, no BS, no filter, just a swift kick in the mind. If you like learning about things like philosophy, psychology, lifestyle hacks, entrepreneurship, or dodging existential dread, then you're in the right place.