Ever feel like you need the perfect plan before you can start anything? This conversation might change that.

In this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna sits down with Chris Baer, a raft guide and whitewater kayaker who lives half the year out of a converted school bus and spends his winters chasing first descents in remote corners of the world, often with little more than two weeks' notice.

This conversation is for anyone who's ever held back because they didn't have it all figured out yet.

Anna and Chris dig into:

🌫️ Why whitewater is "all gray," and how letting go of rigid rules opens up better decisions

🧩 How problem-solving on the fly becomes a way of life, on the river and off

✈️ What happens when you trade a five-year plan for two weeks' notice and a plane ticket

👣 Why getting feet on the ground beats overanalyzing every detail in advance

If you're craving more confidence in navigating the unknown, this one's worth a listen.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!

What if the language you've been using to help people is actually underselling them?

In this solo episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque shares a perspective shift that stopped her in her tracks: after 25 years of building a brand around "empowering women," she's retiring the phrase. Sparked by Emma Grede's book Start With Yourself, Anna explores why the word "empowerment" may inadvertently suggest women need someone else to give them what they already have.

This episode isn't about tearing down a movement. It's about getting more honest and more precise about what great coaching, instruction, and community actually do: create the container, hold the space, and trust that the person in front of you already has what it takes.

If you've ever questioned the language you use, wrestled with a belief that served you well and then stopped, or wondered what it really means to support someone's growth, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why Anna is dropping "women's empowerment" from her brand vocabulary after 25 years

• The real role of a coach, instructor, or mentor, and why it matters how we frame it

• What her year-long recovery from a herniated disc taught her about inner strength and being supported

• How to hold an idea you've outgrown with both honesty and self-compassion

• Why changing your language is an act of courage, not correction

Whether you're a coach, a paddler, or someone mid-shift in how you see your own work, this episode will give you something worth sitting with.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

What does it take to help someone do something they're afraid to do?

In this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna sits down with Casey Bryant Jones, Director of the Ottawa Kayak School, for a conversation that gets into the real inner game of learning whitewater kayaking. Casey has spent years teaching paddlers of all levels on one of the world's premier big-water rivers, and he gets specific about fear, confidence, and what it actually means to succeed on the water.

This is a conversation about what happens in the space between what you think you can do and what you're actually capable of doing.

If you paddle whitewater at any level and want to build more confidence on the water, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why flipping and rolling is a superpower, not a failure (and why the students who flip most often are the ones who progress fastest)

• The "ramp up, ramp back down" approach that Casey uses to find the right level of challenge without breaking a student's confidence

• The breathing technique a mentor taught him in Chile that he still uses today

• Why he and his wife have introduced their young daughters to whitewater kayaking even though it can be uncomfortable and scary

🌊 Whether you're working on your roll, developing your skills on the water, or building confidence, this one is worth your full attention.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever had a "stupid, hare-brained idea" that worked so well it took over your life for a decade?

That's exactly what happened to James Byrd when he looked at the North Fork of the Payette River in Idaho, thought about his college football stadium experience, and decided the best kayakers in the world should be racing it in front of a crowd. What started as a passion project became one of the premier whitewater extreme races on the planet, the North Fork Championship, and now, after a few years away, James and his wife Regan are bringing it back.

James is also a registered nurse, a lifelong paddler, and one of the most genuinely stoked people I know. This conversation went a lot of places I didn't expect, and I think you'll appreciate it.

In this episode:

• The visualization practice James uses before stepping up to something big and scary on the water, and why he won't send it until he genuinely feels ready

• What it was like to get pushback when he first launched the event, and the one moment that changed everything

• Why he thinks kayaking athletes deserve to be known, not just watched, and what he's doing about it

• The real talk on money, sustainability, and what he and Regan discovered when they did the math on their nursing wages versus the hours they put into North Fork

• How going nonprofit is changing what's possible for the event's future

If you've ever poured everything into something you believed in, hit friction, and wondered whether it was worth it, this one's for you.

🎧 Listen now and walk away thinking differently about what it actually costs to build something worth having, in paddling and in life.

What does it take to keep going when everything around you — the sport, the culture, the system — says this isn't your place?

At the age of 13, Naina Adhikari made her way to the Ganga River, 300 km from her home village to start learning how to whitewater kayak. She couldn't swim, and was the only girl on the river with no female mentors to turn to. Although she faced many obstacles, she persisted.

Naina has since represented India at the World Championships and Olympic qualifiers, won the Ganga Kayak Festival twice, and founded Ganga Girls and the Pravahini Foundation, projects that train Indian female kayakers, and that bring survivors of human trafficking to the river, and to paddling, to experience freedom, strength, and community.

This is a conversation for anyone who has ever had to find their footing in a world that wasn't built for them.

In this episode:

• The real off-river challenges of being the only woman in a male-dominated sport inside a traditional culture

• What Naina had to navigate alone, and why she stayed anyway

• The story behind Ganga Girls and Project Shakti

• What big volume water on the Ganga teaches about presence and showing up every day

Naina's legacy word is "revolutionary." After listening, you'll understand why.

Why do some paddlers make moves look effortless while others keep missing them by inches? And when did you last give up on a move you could have made?

In this solo episode, Anna shares what two recent private instruction clients discovered that changed everything: looking where you want to go isn't as natural as it sounds, especially when something intimidating downstream is pulling your eyes away.

Anna connects this paddling fundamental to the bigger picture, including how her dream of leading a whitewater paddling and Ayurveda trip to India went from a casual idea shared in a Reboot and Refuel Reset to a sold-out reality, and how her own back recovery required the same commitment to vision over time.

In this episode, you'll explore:

• Why looking ahead is a learnable skill that takes practice
• How committing your vision changes your angle, and your outcome
• The real reason we give up on moves, goals, and dreams too soon
• Why sustainability means keeping your eye on the goal even after things start going well

This episode is for anyone who knows where they want to go but keeps getting pulled into distraction and worry, or gets stuck in tunnel vision, looking only at what's right in front of you (aka your bow).

🎧 Listen now and start paddling toward what matters.

Ann Gillard saw a gap in the paddling community and did what any good river person would do: she gathered her crew and got on the water to build a space where people can actually show up as themselves.

Ann is an ACA Level 4 whitewater kayak instructor, NRS ambassador, and founder of Pride Day on the River, a volunteer-led event on the Deerfield River in Massachusetts dedicated to LGBTQ+ visibility and participation in paddle sports. It draws over 150 people for a community paddle, beginner clinics, affinity group paddling, and one of the most joyful after-parties on the river.

In this episode, Anna and Ann explore:

• The discomfort zone continuum — how Ann uses body cues to distinguish her comfort zone, panic zone, and the growth space in between

• The 51% rule — Ann's personal metric for deciding when a rapid is worth running, and why purpose matters more than peer pressure

• Ego and the river — when ego is a useful push, when it gets in the way, and how to tell the difference

• Building genuinely inclusive spaces — what it actually looks like to create a container where people can show up as themselves, not as who the sport expects them to be

• Ann's favorite river metaphor — she shares one in rapid fire that will make you see rivers and community completely differently

• Cleaning up your mistakes — the courage it takes to own an error in front of a group, and why that moment of accountability can build more trust than getting it right the first time

If any of this is resonating — hit play. This one stays with you.

Seth Chappelle competed at ten Freestyle Kayak World Championships before standing on top of the podium in 2023. That kind of persistence doesn't happen by accident — and it doesn't happen without discomfort. He's also an ER nurse, volunteer ski patroller, and a stay-at-home dad to two girls under five. In other words, he knows something about staying calm under pressure.

In this conversation, Seth and Anna dig into what keeps a world-class athlete going through a decade of near-misses, including four fourth-place finishes at Worlds, and what it takes to finally break through. But this episode is about more than paddling results. It's about how the river teaches you to manage the discomfort that shows up everywhere else in your life.

Seth and Anna talk about:

• Why breaking a rapid down move by move is the same skill that helps you make hard decisions in life

• What it's like to nearly podium at Worlds four times and how Seth stayed motivated instead of bitter

• The identity shift that comes when competition stops being your primary focus

• What it really means to be a stay-at-home dad when your identity has been built around athletic performance

• How Seth is introducing his daughters to the outdoors without pressure, and why keeping it fun is the long game

• The river metaphor that carried Seth to a world title: a river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence

This one is rich with honest reflection from someone who has competed at the highest level for over 25 years and is now navigating one of the most humbling discomfort zones of all: parenthood.

Tune in if you're navigating a shift in identity, a long-term goal, or just need a reminder that persistence is its own kind of skill.

What does resilience actually look like when pain isn't occasional - it's constant?

Jak Fantastic has been kayaking since she was six years old, born with severely clubbed feet and limited mobility. By 14, she was on the GB Freestyle Kayak Team. By 19, she was facing hip dysplasia, multiple surgeries, and a prognosis that said she would never kayak again. She went eight years without paddling. And then, in 2018 - unable to walk - she got back in a boat.

In 2025, Jak made the decision to amputate her leg, hoping it would give her back more of her life. Before her wound had fully healed, she was back on the water. A year later, she's running remote expeditions in India and competing at the highest levels of the sport.

In this episode, Jak and Anna explore what it means to keep showing up when every day includes some form of pain - physical, emotional, or both. They talk about identity loss, the dark years when kayaking stopped being possible, and what finally cracked open the door to meditation after years of resistance (hint: it started in a yoga class in Rishikesh after a Christmas that broke her open).

This is one of the most honest conversations about discomfort, courage, and the choice to keep going that we've had on this show.

In this episode:

• Why Jak says discomfort isn't the obstacle — it's just life, and how that shift changed everything

• The eight years she spent away from kayaking and what it took to find her way back

• How grief, a solo trip to India, and one quiet moment in the mountains cracked open her meditation practice

• Living with phantom limb pain after amputation — and what sitting with pain (instead of fighting it) has taught her

• What the whitewater community needs to do to make the sport more accessible for differently abled paddlers

Press play and spend an hour in the discomfort zone with someone who lives there every day, and continues to choose it powerfully.

About Jak Fantastic: Jak Fantastic is a British whitewater kayaker, adaptive sports advocate, and expedition paddler with over 30 years on the water. A former GB Freestyle Team member, she competed at the 2023 World Freestyle Championships and has podium finishes at World Cups and British Championships. She paddles with one leg, an ADHD brain, a dry sense of humor, and zero interest in being told what she can't do.

Today is my 52nd birthday — and I'm doing something I don't do nearly enough: actually stopping to celebrate.

If you're someone who moves straight to the next goal, minimizes what you've accomplished, or quietly compares yourself out of your own wins — this one's for you.

I'm sharing a simple reflection practice that has a way of shifting everything, including how you talk to yourself when something feels hard or out of reach.

It takes about five minutes. Your younger self will thank you.

Try the exercise and let me know what you discover: Email Me!