

MindHack
Cody McLain
What happens when you give an overthinking entrepreneur a microphone, a curiosity obsession, and access to the sharpest minds on the planet? You get MindHack - the podcast for founders, builders, and high-performers who want to upgrade their brain like they upgrade their software. Each week, Cody McLain (entrepreneur since 15, burnout survivor, and productivity nerd) sits down with scientists, psychologists, and successful entrepreneurs to reverse-engineer how extraordinary people think, feel, and execute. We unpack the mental models, weird routines, emotional rewiring, and psychology-backed strategies that actually work—so you can build your business without losing your mind. 🎯 Think: startup grit meets cognitive science. 🎙️ Guests include bestselling authors, startup OGs, and unreasonably curious humans. 🔥 Warning: listening may result in existential clarity, better habits, and fewer panic Googles at 2am. New episodes every week. Subscribe and hack your brain before your brain hacks you.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 3, 2019 • 1h 6min
Become Bilingual & Learn How Just "One Thing" Can Change Your Life - Sami Halabi
Today we’re interviewing somebody who is incredibly focused, driven, and ambitious from an early age. He’s a polyglot who speaks 5 languages, and is on the top echelons of the Oracle marketing department, serving as a Digital Marketing Manager whose team supports an annual budget of $210M here. He has a significant influence on Oracle’s North America Marketing success, and it's in no small part due to his drive to succeed and get shit done.Apart from delivering on a budget that is larger than the revenue of most of the world’s companies, he also launched his own unique startup called Univoice, which combines our love and taste for music with language learning, and hopes to make it easier for millions to pick up a new language at a much faster rate.His name is Sami Halabi and he’s one of the smartest people I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing. He’s had a myriad of achievements in managing Sales & Marketing teams for companies that have gone on to have tremendous growth. His current team at Oracle is ranked as the top 1 of 8 most productive North American Software Sales Organizations.In this episode, Sami shares his thoughts on marketing, managing a team of people, the science of language learning, what it means to be happy and productive, but most importantly, he offers some applicable advice on how to get out there, overcome mental hurdles, and grow at a rapid pace by expanding the size of your asks and your network.This is a fast-paced episode without much breathing, and with tons of golden nuggets, so you might want to scale back your playback speed because there’s a ton to learn and digest from a very smart person.For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/sami-halabiSupport the show

Aug 2, 2019 • 1h 11min
Launch Yourself Into a Revenue-First Startup - Brent Summers
What does it mean to build a startup as an entrepreneur? In this conversation with Brent Summers, we look at some of the challenges that you'll be faced with not only validating your idea, questions you need to be asking yourself, and how to build a startup as a non-technical person, should you have a founder or just manage contractors.Brent founded and recently sold a company called Code-Free Startup, which is an online learning platform that teaches others how to build a startup using visual design tools like Bubble.is. Brent also has a website called launchingmyself.com and on that site, he publishes a list of previous companies or products he's built and gives a case study on the success or failure of that. Brent took a concept from the online marketing world of building a personal brand and selling online courses, because in most cases once you put the course together, it'll continue to make money for you similar to Tim Ferris's 4-Hour Work-week concept. Support the show

Jul 12, 2019 • 51min
Find Flow & Get Creative in Nature with DIY Genius - Kyle Pearce
Have you ever felt completely stuck in your routine? Today we chat with Kyle Pearce about finding flow in creativity and the benefits of getting out in nature.Kyle Pearce is the founder of DIY Genius and an experiential learning designer, digital business educator, and runs educational nature retreats. Kyle spent the last 7 years building DIY Genius by sharing his passion for self-education and teaching online courses in passion-driven learning, flow psychology, and digital storytelling. He has worked in digital marketing and online education since 2009. He’s a full-stack marketer, and when he’s not working, you’ll find him in the forests and mountains biking, skiing, or hiking.We discuss the best way to learn, making a transition to a new lifestyle and business, and how to find work that you truly enjoy.Support the show

Jun 24, 2019 • 56min
Learn How to Improve your Memory with 4x USA Memory Champion - Nelson Dellis
In this episode of the MindHack podcast, you'll learn simple techniques to improve your memory that can be practiced at any time! Learn techniques from books like Remember It and Moonwalking with Einstein to help you remember the letter and number combinations with memory palaces and other techniques. Nelson Dellis is a four-time USA memory champion and holds the world record for memorizing the most names (235) and words (256) in 15 minutes, as well as the most digits (907) in 30 minutes, and remembering the most decks of playing cards (9.02 decks) in 30 minutes.Although Nelson seems like a Rainman, he's just an average Joe who has taken up a skill of memorization, a technique that dates back thousands of years. Nelson's book Remember It is extremely well written and even includes an intro written by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Nelson has been featured on CNN, ABC, and many other places. He is the co-Founder of the Memory League, a free online community, and he has also made three attempts to summit Mt. Everest. This is an interesting conversation where we discuss how he discovered the world of memory and specific techniques you can start using instantly to improve your memory. Nelson even shares the story of how he once used his memory to cover the tab of a $600 restaurant bill. Truly anybody can drastically improve their ability to remember things with the right attitude and technique.For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/nelson-dellisSupport the show

Jun 7, 2019 • 50min
How this Entrepreneur went from Addiction to Discovering Flow - Michael Dash
Michael Dash is the President and CEO of Parallel HR Solutions, Inc. He is currently in recovery for three different addictions. This journey to hope follows a six-year lawsuit that’s now settled and the sale of his company he spent eleven years building. Michael knows his struggles are not unique to executives and entrepreneurs around the world. He now gets to lead from empathy and become a much more-fulfilled person while realizing what truly matters in life. Michael has run addiction recovery programs for over five years now. He climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and raised over $100K for LLS and traveled to Bali where he studied Flow Consciousness, meditation, and other practices to overcome past challenges. His message was featured on multiple podcasts and published through Medium and Thrive Global where he has a series called F.A.T.E. From Addict To Entrepreneur. Michael’s first book Chasing the High is scheduled to release in June 2019. He was recognized in Utah Business Magazine’s 40 under Forty, his company made the Inc 5000 list four years, and Michael appeared as a guest contributor for Forbes and Huffington Post. For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/michael-dashSupport the show

Apr 30, 2019 • 1h 6min
Learn the Traveler's Mindset and Stress-based Mindfulness - Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson is the Founder and CEO of under30experiences, recently ranked on the Forbes 5,000 list. In this episode, Cody and Matt discuss the importance of travel in getting outside of your daily habits, and mindfulness-based practices to calm and reduce stress.For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/matt-wilsonSupport the show

Apr 29, 2019 • 48min
Finding the Achiever's Mindset - Tiago Forte
Tiago Forte is a writer, speaker, teacher, and researcher dedicated to helping knowledge workers transform their productivity and thrive in the future of work. In this episode, we uncover what it means to be successful, how one can find an achiever's mindset and figure out what it is they are meant to do.For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/tiago-forteSupport the show

Apr 9, 2019 • 1h 1min
Creating a Kaizen Culture and the Importance of Poetry - Seth Braverman
Seth is COO of Xylem Design in Fort Collins, CO. An amateur philosopher and writer of poetry, he's spent the past two years studying under Dan Beachy-Quick, poet and professor at CSU. In this episode we discuss the importance of Kaizen and Poetry––and the positive effects they can have on your life and business.For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/seth-bravermanSupport the show

Oct 10, 2018 • 56min
How to Hack your Motivation and Productivity - Nick Winter
Nick Winter is the co-founder of the highly successful startup, CodeCombat, a free-to-use educational gaming company that teaches players the fundamentals of computer programming.He's also the author of the book, The Motivation Hacker and conducted a series of experiments over 3-months time to create good habits, learn new skills and push himself to achieve more. In this incredible episode, we dig into goal-setting, creating new habits, dealing with burn-out and so much more!For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/nick-winterSupport the show

Aug 14, 2018 • 1h 2min
Lead a Meaningful life, Optimize Learning & What Blockchain has to do With It - Paul Golding
Paul Golding is what I’d refer to as one of the smartest geeks in Silicon Valley. He holds 25 patents across a wide range of fields from cryptography to computational aesthetics, which I had to google and appears to be a subfield of artificial intelligence and its ability to express human creative expression in areas such as music, visual arts, poetry, and more. He was also the Chief Scientist at Art.com where he helped to create a new form of art called the Klio, which in simple form was a TV that looked like an art piece that plays dynamic art that can evolve over time. For full episode information visit: https://www.mindhack.com/episode/paul-goldingSupport the show


