The Ryan Leak Podcast - Mental Fitness

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

We’ve got cold plunges, calorie counters, greens, gyms, diets, and Ozempic for our physical fitness, but what about our mental fitness? In this episode, Ryan Leak breaks down a simple, practical routine for training your mind the same way you train your body. From your morning mental warm-up to emotional resistance training, gratitude cool-downs, and rest days for your brain, this one will help you build a stronger, clearer, and more resilient mindset. Because when your mind is fit, your life follows.

What's going on, my friends? Welcome to the Ryan Week podcast where we love to keep things short and sweet for you. Each and every week got an episode today for you that I believe is going to add value to your life. Today I want to talk to you about your mental fitness routine. Yes, your mental fitness routine. There's a phrase that I've been hearing a lot lately, which is this idea that I am focused on my health. I'm focusing on my health right now. Now, usually when people say that, they're typically talking about physical health.

And believe you, me, I get that. Okay, I'm inching my way up to 40. And over the last couple of years, I have gotten pretty focused on my own physical fitness as well in making sure that I can still do the things I used to be able to do at a high level. And there are thousands of routines and thousands of ways to do it from lifting weights to tracking calories to cold plunges, green powders, protein intake, even Ozimic. Okay, everybody got a little something that they do for their physical fitness. Everywhere you look, someone's talking about what they're trying to do for their physical body. And that's great. But it also got me thinking, we've got routines for our bodies.

But what about our minds? Because traveling and speaking, I've learned, people are often navigating so much in their brains, so much stress, so much anxiety. Think about burnout. You think about decision fatigue. You think about comparison, especially when we're on our phones all day long. You think about the loneliness, you think about the pressure. And when I think about all of the people that I meet day in and day out, that have all of that going on upstairs in their head,

but they don't have a plan for it. They've got perhaps a workout routine, but they don't have a mental fitness routine. So today, that's what we're going to create together, a simple, practical, mental fitness routine that I actually think you can stick to. Now, we're going to be looking at the way that I'm, outlining this is a bunch of exercises, just like we would do for our physical bodies. We're going to do this for our minds.

And so the first thing is a warm-up mental rep. Okay, like you wouldn't start a workout by immediately sprinting full speed on a treadmill, right? You'd warm up first. And so I think the same thing can be true for our minds. The way most of us start our day is like jumping into a mental marathon cold. Okay, I want you to think about that for a second. We wake up, we grab our phones, We check our emails, we read the news, we open up social media,

before we even get the crust out of our eyes. That is not a warm-up. That's a mental ambush, okay? So here's what I'm going to encourage you to do. Your first mental fitness exercise, warm-up rep, I want you to start your day with stillness. Yeah, I want you to start your day with stillness. before you scroll, send to yourself.

Why don't you take a few moments and just take a few deep breaths? Why don't you start off the day with a little prayer? Why don't you start off even writing down three things you're grateful for? Just something just to get your mind headed in a direction that you actually wanted to go. Imagine if you woke up this morning, you just paused and asked yourself, what kind of person do I want to be today? Yeah, you're just, you're centering yourself. You're getting ready for the day to go, man, I'm not going to let whatever pops up on my phone determine the direction of my day.

I'm not going to let my inbox determine the direction of my day. No, what kind of person don't want to be today? I think that's your warm up. I think that's when you're preparing your mind before the world gets a chance to hijack it. Now, now that we've warmed up, exercise number one, I'm going to encourage you to move your body. so you can move your mind. Because when it comes to mental fitness, physical movement is one of the best tools you have. When you work out, your brain releases endorphins.

So you don't just feel better. You think clearer. So part of your mental fitness routine is your physical fitness routine. And so sometimes people are like, man, I don't know what to do at the gym. And it's intimidating. It's just like walk, lift, stretch, do something that gets your body involved in your mental health. If you're stressed, take a walk. If you're anxious, go outside and breathe.

If you're tired, do 20 push-ups. Like, there is something about the physical exertion that wakes your mind up to get into a much better place. Movement, think of it like this. Movement is medicine for your mind. Exercise number two. Feed your mind something healthy. Feed your mind something healthy,

not just your body. If you want to be mentally strong, you have to watch what you consume. And we're not talking calories. We're talking content. What you read, what you watch, who you follow. These are what I would like to call mental calories. Okay, so if you feed your brain a steady diet of fear, gossip, negativity, comparison,

you cannot be surprised when you feel anxious, cynical, or inadequate. So in your routine, I want you to begin to think about having a mental nutrition plan. Like, that means you need to listen to one uplifting podcast or read a few pages of a book that expands your thinking or limit your scroll time on apps that drain you. Think of it like this. If it's not building you, it's breaking you. If it's not building you, it's breaking you. And your mental diet determines your mental strength. Sometimes that means taking a break from social media.

Sometimes that means taking a break from even sports. I have to do this all throughout the year, just as I'm navigating everything going on in my life. Sometimes I need to take breaks and really consider and take inventory of what I'm feeding my mind. Exercise number three, lift something heavy. And when I say lift something heavy, I'm not talking physically. emotionally. Every gym has weights. Why? Because resistance builds strength. It's the same for your brain.

Mental fitness requires emotional resistance training. That means doing hard things on purpose. What's I mean? That means having that difficult conversation you've been avoiding, setting a boundary that you've been meaning to set for a very, very long time, or owning a mistake, or apologizing first. Every time you face something uncomfortable instead of running from it, your mind gets stronger. That's how you build emotional muscle. You don't get stronger by avoiding the weight. You get stronger by lifting it. So if there's something that's just been on your mind for a very, very long time, I've been thinking about doing, I've been thinking about doing it. Yeah, try doing it today. And you'll find yourself getting more in shape mentally. Exercise number four, rest and recovery. Physical trainers will tell you,

your body doesn't grow in the gym. It grows in recovery. I think your mind works the same way. You can't think 24-7 and expect your brain to function at peak performance. That's like trying to run a marathon without water. So your next mental fitness rep is rest. Unplug. Take a nap. Read something that makes you laugh. Sit in silence for five minutes. Rest isn't a reward. It's a requirement. When you rest your mind, you renew your energy. and that's how you make progress long term. Exercise five, this is big. This is really, really big.

You got to get a spotter. No one lifts heavy alone. Every serious lifter has someone watching their form, ready to help them if the weight get too heavy. At some point, you've got to ask, who's your spotter mentally? Who helps you when life gets heavy? That could be a friend,

could be a mentor, a therapist, someone who checks in on you and asks, Hey, how's your headspace? For me, a guy who does a lot is a guy named Daniel Young. He's always checking on me. It's like, hey man, how's your headspace? In fact, he asked me this question earlier today. He said, hey, how are you doing off of the stage?

Like, where are you at? And it's just like, man, thanks for asking me that. You know, I think mental fitness isn't just about what you can carry. It's about who helps you carry it. And I also want you to know that you were not meant to do life solo. You need someone who reminds you to rest. challenges your thinking and celebrates your progress. If you don't have a mental spotter, that's your next step.

Find one. Oh, and bonus points, be a mental spotter for somebody else. Exercise number six, train your thoughts. You can't control every thought that pops into your head, but you can decide which one's day. That's called thought management, and it is at the core of mental fitness. When a negative thought shows up like,

oh, let's say I'm not good enough, or this always happens to me. Do not let it move in rent-free. Challenge it. Replace it. Retrain it. Ask yourself, is this thought true?

Is it helpful? Is it how I want to think right now? Here's a deal. You can't stop negative thoughts from showing up, but you can stop them from staying. Mental fitness means learning to talk back to your thoughts instead of letting them talk you out of your peace. Exercise number seven, gratitude cool down.

Every workout ends with a cool down. It's where your body resets and recovers. Your mind needs that too. Before you end your day, why don't you do a gratitude cool down? Ask yourself, what went right today? What did I learn? What am I thankful for?

I can just tell you this. Gratitude is going to shift your focus from what's missing to what's meaningful every single time. And that shift might be the most powerful rep of your entire day. Exercise number eight, progress tracking. Okay, physical fitness people love tracking progress, whether it's steps, weights, calories, before and after pictures. But how often do we do that with our mental progress? What if you started noticing how you

handled things differently this week compared to last? What if your progress wasn't just how much you got done, but how you responded when things didn't go as planned? And you'd be able to track that just by journaling, and just being able to see, man, I've grown mentally. Like your mental fitness doesn't always show up in the mirror because you might look the same, but you think differently. You know you're getting stronger in the same situations that used to overwhelm you no longer do.

Last exercise, exercise number nine, just keep showing up. There's no finish line for fitness, physical or mental. It's a lifetime journey. I love going to the gym every day. And guess what? There are people, it's their first day, and there are people there that it's like they live there. Guess what?

They both need the gym. We all do. And so there's something powerful about just continuing to show up. Some days, you're going to crush it. Other days, your brain's going to feel foggy, and you'll forget every good habit you've ever learned. And that's okay. the goal isn't perfection.

It's practice. So I'm going to encourage you to keep showing up. Keep doing the reps. Keep training your mind to stay grounded and grateful and focused on what you actually can control because when your mind is strong, you can handle almost anything that life throws at you. If you want to live with peace and clarity and purpose,

I'm going to encourage you, train for it. Don't just hope for a healthy mind. Build one. you've got your physical fitness plan. Now you've got your mental fitness plan. So I encourage you to stick to it because when you strengthen your mind, you strengthen your life. My friends, thank you so much for listening to the Ryan League podcast.

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