Delete Your Defaults

What if discomfort isn’t something to avoid—but an invitation into expansion, aliveness, and self-trust?

In this episode, Rosa and Aaron dive into the strange, surprising terrain of discomfort—anticipation, dread, exhilaration, growth—and what it means to meet it with curiosity instead of resistance. From skydiving and long flights to creative risks and self-talk, we explore why everything you want really is on the other side of some new form of discomfort—and how to cross that threshold with celebration rather than self-punishment.

You’ll hear:

• Why anticipated discomfort is usually worse than the real thing

• How novel discomfort (not familiar pain) is where growth actually happens

• How to reframe dread as excitement and discomfort as aliveness

• Why “experiments” and “mistakes” are the true markers of expansion

• The danger of proficiency fatalism (and how to start anyway)

• Practices for befriending discomfort: movement, reframing, self-encouragement, and awe

We're here to remind you that discomfort doesn’t stand in your way—it just happens to be in front of you.

We love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected].

In this episode, Rosa and Aaron unpack why most “communication” isn’t—yet. We explore trading “How are you?” for openings that spark real connection, explore why “Does that make sense?” falls flat, and share practical moves like reflection and slowing down to speed up. Along the way we touch on self-talk as a performance enhancer, the limits of language, and the courage to keep conversations open, curious, and kind.

We reference Delete Your Defaults favorites Alan Watts and Joe Hudson.

We love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected].

If you’re ready for friendships (and a life) that can hold truth, tenderness, and growth—this one’s for you.

Episode snapshot

Rosa and Aaron unpack what we call full-contact friendship: relationships where we stop performing, tell the truth, and meet each other in the gritty, generous middle. You’ll hear about midlife “unraveling,” the comfort trap, type-2 fun, and the inner work that makes vulnerability feel less like free-fall and more like strength training for the soul.

Mentioned in this episode

• Brené Brown — The Midlife Unraveling
• Michael Easter — The Comfort Crisis
• Ryan Holiday — The Obstacle Is the Way
• Art of Accomplishment (Joe Hudson) — the “enjoy this 10% more” experiment
• Jordan Hirsch — improv-based coaching

We love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected].

For all that we live in a world that pretends we’re rational beings doing rational things, feelings drive everything in our lives, or block everything. Developing the skill of feeling our feelings, allowing them to move, expressing them healthily determines the quality of our relationships, our creative output, our work product, and so much more.

We explore how our feelings can bring us wisdom and information the brain can’t grasp or hold onto, the value of intuition, 

We mention Joe Hudson and his awesome coaching videos. Here’s the specific one we refer to. Here’s another.

We also mention two breathwork apps: Pause and Breathwrk.

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at [email protected] (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.

This episode explores vulnerability as the core to full contact living, how avoiding vulnerability is a way of trying to be in control and stay safe. But what is safety? Protecting ourselves from life means protecting ourselves from living.

Vulnerability is the courage of giving ourselves permission to BE ourselves out loud, and in so doing, making ourselves available for real connection.

We explore resistance, attachment, and changing our minds. 

We mention poet Andrea Gibson: check out their amazing work all over the internet, and Brene Brown and the midlife unraveling.

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at [email protected] (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.

People are craving authenticity more and more – both expressing it and being around others who are embodying it. We explore our own challenges to being authentically self expressed and our experiences getting in touch with it.

We mention a few resources!

Brene Brown and her concept of the Midlife Unraveling.

Doctor Rachel Zoffness, who was featured on the Pain episode of the Ologies podcast.

Rosa's membership program Befriend Your Body.

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.

What humans are capable of is so fucking awesome. Why don't we lean into more of that and less efficiency and making money?

What does it mean to live fully? How do we be present to enjoy our lives? We explore the value of boredom, and Aaron commits to going on a boredom quest. We discuss the pleasures of getting to know the landscape of our neighborhoods and the simple yet mind-bending idea that we are one with all of existence.

We refer repeatedly to Alan Watts, including The Book, which is available as a downloadable pdf.

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.

In this episode, we explore what it really means to be kind, the cost of being nice, what it means to be real, and what’s the deal with so much fakeness these days?

We mention these pieces:

Kim Scott: Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

Greg Story of Brilliant Crank: We've built a society on bullshit and emojis and LinkedIn is a waiting room of doom

Jim Dethmer on conscious leadership

Dave Gray: Liminal Thinking: Create the Change You Want by Changing the Way You Think

Bryan Cantril talk: Principles of Technology Leadership | Bryan Cantrill | Monktoberfest 2017

From Sahil Bloom's Curiosity Chronicle: Are you into your pattern interrupts?

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.

All humans – including you! – are creative. And we all have creative processes, though we aren't always aware of what they are.

In this conversation, we explore our creative processes, and barriers and facilitators to creativity.

We mention a bunch of people, including:

Gary Bernhardt of Destroy All Software

I credit Maya Angelou with the quote that you should let your failures refine you, not define you, but it turns out it was Max Lucado who said that.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Louie Parkinson of Catalyst Climbing

Brene Brown in reference to midlife "unraveling"

adrienne maree brown and her quote that, "Feeling good isn't frivolous; it's freedom."

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.

In this episode, we explore the concept of work life balance, the definition of success, and the foundational question of what is your life for?

We mention a bunch of books, podcasts, and people! Here they are:

Douglas Rushkoff and his Team Human podcast

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System by Wes Marshall

The High Cost of Free Parking: Updated Edition by Donald Shoup

Professor Scott Galloway (No Mercy / No Malice), whose Prof G pod and Pivod Podcast can be found here

The Daily Stoic - Stoic Wisdom For Everyday Life - by Ryan Holiday

Our music is by “Music Unlimited” from Pixabay. You can write to us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ (and we really do read all the emails).

Find this and all of our episodes on deleteyourdefeaults.show, or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, consider giving us a five-star review; it helps us find other listeners like you.