We recently connected with Lindsay Scola and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lindsay, thanks for joining us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

For most of my life, I thought sleep was my enemy.

I was ambitious, high-achieving, and always exhausted—but I wore that exhaustion like a badge of honor. Hustle culture told me rest was weakness. I believed it. So I pushed through… until I couldn’t anymore.

After 19 years of unexplained fatigue, anxiety, and burnout, I was finally diagnosed with narcolepsy (a neurological disorder of the sleep-wake cycle that disrupts the brain’s ability to regulate when to be awake and when to sleep).

But the diagnosis wasn’t the shock—what truly floored me was how little any of us knew about sleep, including my doctors. I had spent nearly two decades inside a medical mystery, and no one—not one doctor—had ever thought to ask the right questions. Not because they didn’t care, but because they’d never been taught how sleep actually works either.

So I started teaching myself.

I needed to understand this disorder. I needed language to explain it to others. And I needed to reconcile the years I’d spent blaming myself for something biological. What started as a personal crash course became something bigger—a mission to make sleep make sense, especially for high-achieving people like me who were taught to outwork their biology.

I built a business to teach what we should’ve learned: how sleep actually works, how to use it to perform better, and how to recognize when something deeper might be going on. Because here’s the thing: 1 in 5 people have a diagnosable sleep disorder—and most of them don’t even know it.

Sleep isn’t the enemy.
It’s the strategy we were never taught.

Lindsay, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Lindsay Scola—author, keynote speaker, and sleep strategist. I work at the intersection of sleep, productivity, and storytelling to provide no-BS sleep strategy for ambitious humans who are tired of being tired.

After two decades behind the scenes in politics, government, and entertainment—working with everyone from the Obamas to Emmy-winning creatives—I hit a wall. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and totally out of sync with my own body. Eventually, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy, a neurological sleep disorder I’d unknowingly lived with for 19 years.

That diagnosis cracked everything open. Not just in terms of how to manage it—but in realizing how little any of us understand about sleep. Doctors don’t get trained on it. Schools don’t teach it. And most of us are just winging it.

So I decided to do something about it.

Today, I run a company that helps high performers rethink their relationship with rest. Through corporate workshops, my signature course (Sleep Is the Power Move), and one-on-one coaching, I help people understand how sleep actually works—so they can sleep better, perform better, and spot deeper issues faster. Because here’s the truth: 1 in 5 people has a diagnosable sleep disorder, and most have no idea.

What sets me apart? I speak both “science” and “real life.” I’ve lived the grind, learned the biology, and now I translate it into strategies that actually work. No gimmicks. No 17-step bedtime routines. Just sleep science that meets people where they are.

At the end of the day, I’m here to help people reclaim rest as a radical act of self-leadership—and finally stop seeing sleep as something they have to earn.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Absolutely. But it didn’t start as a side hustle—it started as survival.

I needed to understand sleep to help myself. After being diagnosed with narcolepsy and realizing how little education exists around sleep—even in the medical world—I had to piece together answers from scratch. And because I learn best by teaching, I started sharing what I was learning with the people around me.

Before long, I became everyone’s go-to for sleep advice. Friends. Colleagues. Former bosses. High-powered leaders who’d crushed every metric except their own rest. What started as helping a few people untangle their exhaustion quickly snowballed into speaking gigs, coaching, and private sessions with executives, journalists, creatives, and policymakers who were burning out just like I had.

Now, I’ve taken everything I’ve taught in those rooms and built a course called Sleep Is the Power Move—a practical, no-fluff program that helps ambitious people understand how sleep actually works, how to optimize it for performance, and how to recognize when something deeper might be going on.

This work became my full-time business not because I set out to start one—but because the need was too loud to ignore.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Absolutely. My mission is to bridge the gap between the sleep science world and… well, the rest of us.

There’s incredible research out there—life-changing insights about how sleep actually works—but most people never hear it in a way that makes sense, let alone in a way that fits into their real lives. The science stays locked in academic journals and buried behind medical jargon. And in the absence of clear, trustworthy guidance, people turn to gimmicks, trends, and 30-second TikToks promising miracle cures.

I believe there’s a huge demand for smart, honest, usable guidance—and if no one steps up to translate the science into real-world strategy, that vacuum just keeps getting filled with snake oil salesmen.

My creative mission is to be the person who says, “Hey, here’s what’s actually happening in your body—and here’s how to work with it, not against it.” I want to make sleep science feel human, doable, and maybe even a little fun. Because we deserve better than burnout—and we deserve better than biohacking.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Lindsayscola.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsay.scola?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-scola?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Image Credits

Photo 1: Bob Scola // No credits needed for other photos.