Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Nonconformity is definitely one of Those Awesome Persons, having always lived his life “dangerously” by taking risks and working to live up to his ideals. He’s someone I admire and aspire to emulate.

This short TEDtalk vid (17 minutes) is an amusing and interesting discussion of fear and its influence in our lives.

He talks about our fear of change, particularly in regards to taking that first step into the unknown. As he says, “the thing about change is that you can’t ever just change ONE thing; and once you start going down the road of change, you don’t always know where you are going to end up.”

He also says the following very profound statement:”You have to become a believer and not a cynic…” I will be writing more about the dangers of cynicism, but I think for now his own stories about the things he found scary and how he confronted those insecurities say enough. I especially liked how he introduced the idea of “permission” as a way of managing fear.

Here you go – sit back and get inspired!