Disrupting Default

Hema Crockett and Michael Crockett
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Biweekly

Disrupting Default exposes the invisible rulebook controlling your decisions and shows you how to break free. Think your choices are personal? Think again - from career paths to success definitions, you're sleepwalking through a life designed by others. Each episode reveals one massive lie we've been sold and provides ways to escape the system. No fluff, just raw truth about social conditioning and step-by-step breakdowns of real freedom. Warning: this will mess with your head and make you question everything. Ready to reclaim your life?

  1. 4d ago

    Anger is Information: And Your Body is Keeping Score

    Anger has a reputation problem. We've been taught it's a character flaw - something to manage, suppress, apologize for, or get over as quickly as possible. But what if anger isn't the problem? What if it's one of the most honest signals your body produces? In this episode, Hema and Mike dig into what anger actually is, the very different ways men and women are taught to relate to it, and what chronically suppressing it does to your body - from elevated cortisol and cardiovascular stress to anxiety, chronic pain, and the slow erosion of self-trust. Anger isn't something to fix. It's something to listen to. This episode is about learning how.

    Anger is Information: And Your Body is Keeping Score

  2. Jul 8

    The 'No Drama' Default: What We're Really Saying When We Call Someone Dramatic

    "I'm a no-drama person." It's on dating profiles, in job interviews, and said like it's a compliment. But what does it actually mean - and who decides what counts as drama in the first place? In this episode, Hema and Mike challenge one of the most socially accepted ways we dismiss other people's feelings. Because more often than not, the "dramatic" label doesn't get applied to people who are actually creating chaos. It gets applied to people who have feelings, express them, and don't quietly absorb whatever just happened. We dig into the gendered pattern behind who gets called dramatic, what it costs relationships when people learn it's safer to stay quiet, and why "no drama" is sometimes really just avoidance. Real emotional maturity isn't the absence of conflict. It's the ability to stay present through it.

    The 'No Drama' Default: What We're Really Saying When We Call Someone Dramatic

  3. Jun 24

    Take the Compliment: Why We Can’t Just Say Thank You

    Someone tells you "I love that on you" or "you did such a great job" - and your instinct is to deflect. "Oh, this old thing." "It was nothing, really." We've been taught that brushing off a compliment is modest. It's not. It's a quiet rejection of something someone just offered you - and most of us would never do that with an actual gift. In this episode, Hema and Mike unpack the deflection reflex: why we think minimizing praise is the polite response, the gendered patterns behind who deflects what, and what it actually costs us - both in our relationships and in how we talk to ourselves. You'll learn where this habit really comes from, what's happening underneath it, and how to start disrupting it with something deceptively simple: just saying thank you. Perfect for anyone who's ever brushed off a compliment, downplayed their own work, or felt weird just accepting praise without a "but."

    Take the Compliment: Why We Can’t Just Say Thank You

  4. Jun 10

    Body Language is Gendered: What We Were Taught About Taking Up Space

    In Episode 3 of Season 2, Hema and Mike extend the genderconditioning thread into the physical: the way we’ve all been taught to exist in our bodies differently based on our gender.   Women are taught to shrink - sit with legs crossed, smileconstantly, avoid postures that might read as aggressive. Men are taught to expand - spread out, take up room, hold eye contact. Nobody said any of this explicitly. It was absorbed through watching, through being corrected, through learning what version of yourself made others most comfortable. And most of us have never questioned it.   This episode unpacks the real consequences: how postureaffects not just how others perceive you but how you perceive yourself, the gendered patterns in meeting rooms and workplace dynamics, and the specific double bind facing executive women - told to be more assertive, penalized when they are.   Learn practical, honest guidance for women reclaiming physicalspace, for executive women navigating impossible double standards, and for men recognizing when physical space becomes an unconscious dominance cue.   Perfect for anyone who has ever made themselves smaller tomake others comfortable - and anyone ready to stop.

    Body Language is Gendered: What We Were Taught About Taking Up Space

  5. May 27

    Men Don't Talk About It: The Cost of Silence Nobody Chose

    Following the alpha male myth dismantled in Episode 1, Episode2 of Disrupting Default Season 2 explores the human cost of actually living by that script. The alpha archetype doesn’t just shape behavior - it shapes what men are allowed to feel, say, and ask for. And the numbers tell the story: men die by suicide at nearly 4x the rate of women, are significantly less likely toseek mental health support, and report fewer close friendships than women, with the gap growing.   Hema and Mike trace the conditioning from childhood - the“don’t cry,” “man up,” “don’t be sensitive” messages that become so automatic they’re invisible - through adult male friendships built on activity rather than conversation.   The disruption section is practical and nuanced: what actuallyhelps men access emotional honesty, what the people around men can do differently, and what this conversation is not about. Not forced vulnerability, not pathologizing stoicism. Just making sure men actually have a choice.   Perfect for men who’ve been told to handle it alone, partnersand friends who want to show up differently, and anyone who has watched someone they care about carry something they didn’t have to carry alone.

    Men Don't Talk About It: The Cost of Silence Nobody Chose

  6. May 13

    The Alpha Male Myth: Why the Archetype We Were Sold Was Never Real

    In the Season 2 premiere of Disrupting Default, Hema and Miketake on one of modern culture’s most persistent archetypes: the alpha male. Dominant, aggressive, never asking for help, volume as authority - it’s a blueprint millions have been handed as the definition of strength. The problem? It was built on a scientific mistake the original researcher spent decades trying to correct.   This episode traces the alpha myth from its origins - a 1970sstudy of wolves in captivity that fundamentally misread how wolf packs actually work - to the billion-dollar self-help industry that monetized the error before anyone could walk it back. We unpack what the alpha archetype is actually describing, who profits from keeping it alive, and what real leadership lookslike in wolf packs and in boardrooms.   We also go where this conversation rarely goes: the impact onwomen. Executive women are routinely told to adopt alpha characteristics to be taken seriously - and then penalized for the exact same behaviors that are rewarded in men. That’s not a personal failing. That’s a double bind built on a myth that was wrong from the start.   Perfect for anyone who’s been told to “be more alpha,” anyonenavigating leadership in a culture that rewards dominance, and anyone ready to stop measuring themselves against a fiction.

    The Alpha Male Myth: Why the Archetype We Were Sold Was Never Real

  7. Season 2 Trailer

    Season 2 Trailer

    The defaults you never questioned? We're going there. Season 2 drops May 13th.

    Season 2 Trailer

  8. Apr 15

    Diet Coke Logic: Why We Negotiate With Ourselves Over Food

    In this Season 1 finale of Disrupting Default, we expose the absurd mental loop we've created where nothing is just food anymore – it's a moral decision that requires a calculator. We explore the constant negotiation: ordering a burger and fries with a Diet Coke like the diet soda somehow cancels out the 2,000 calories. "I'll eat a salad for dinner so I can have dessert." "I had dessert today, so I'll run extra miles tomorrow." "I ate healthy all week, so I can have a cheat day." If any of that sounds familiar, you're not alone. We've turned food into a constant negotiation, treating our bodies like bank accounts where we deposit salads and withdraw desserts. Where Diet Coke is the loophole that makes the burger "better." Where we pre-compensate and post-compensate like our hunger requires permission. This episode traces our food negotiation back to the mental gymnastics we all do. The Diet Coke delusion: it's not about actual health, it's about feeling like we made ONE better choice, a gesture toward "being good," permission to have the meal we've already decided is "bad." The compensation equation: constant mental math where every meal is a transaction (salad for lunch = pasta for dinner, dessert today = skip breakfast tomorrow), and you're too busy tracking and adjusting to enjoy anything. "Earning" your food: we've moralized eating where "I was good" means salad and "I was bad" means pizza, like you have to earn dessert through workouts, like hunger isn't reason enough to eat. Tune in to discover the "cheat day" mentality (if you're cheating, who are you betraying?), the exhausting cycle it creates (restrict → cheat → guilt → restrict harder), and what it looks like to just... eat. Imagine: hungry? Eat. Want dessert? Have it. No pre-compensation, no post-compensation, no math. Spoiler alert: food is fuel, pleasure, culture, and connection – but it's not a moral test. A salad doesn't buy you dessert rights. Your body isn't an Excel spreadsheet. Perfect for anyone ordering Diet Coke with ridiculous meals, eating salads to earn dessert, doing extra workouts to burn off cookies, treating food as good/bad, exhausted from constant calculation, or ready to stop apologizing to themselves for eating.

    Diet Coke Logic: Why We Negotiate With Ourselves Over Food
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About

Disrupting Default exposes the invisible rulebook controlling your decisions and shows you how to break free. Think your choices are personal? Think again - from career paths to success definitions, you're sleepwalking through a life designed by others. Each episode reveals one massive lie we've been sold and provides ways to escape the system. No fluff, just raw truth about social conditioning and step-by-step breakdowns of real freedom. Warning: this will mess with your head and make you question everything. Ready to reclaim your life?

Information

  • Creator
    Hema Crockett and Michael Crockett
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    23
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Hema Crockett and Michael Crockett
  • Show Website
    Disrupting Default