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You know how you shouldn’t show a movie about something to an expert in that field? A cop movie will get groans from actual police officers, scientists will sigh at a film about a meteor heading for Earth, and if you get both a cop and a scientist to watch an episode of CSI, watch out. That’s because experts have it all figured out.

We make Fear.less for everyone, but “Fear.less” is the name of the magazine, site and blog, not the name of the stories or posts it comprises. Within each story, within each paragraph, there are parts that are not for everyone.

The people who are going to get the most mileage out of Fear.less are people who, on some level, don’t have what it takes (more like they just don’t know that they do!). A professional writer will look at the insights offered by Julia Cameron or any of the contributors with popular blogs and perhaps say, “Uh, yeah.” If you’re well-versed in Buddhism, then Pema Chodron, Sharon Salzberg et al are just gonna tell you stuff you already knew.

A magazine about overcoming fear is, fundamentally, about overcoming weaknesses. If you don’t have the weakness, you don’t need the help. That’s perfectly fine – but we hope you will show someone who does. That’s why it’s so important that Fear.less be shared. A lot of risk-taking, extroverted people read our work, and we love their feedback and are grateful that it helps them in some way. But we are also reaching out to people who are locked up, who are not immediately impressive, who have not realized much potential at all, even people who others would whisper will probably not amount to anything. We want those people to know, or be inspired to learn, what they are capable of.

If you don’t have a use for Fear.less, congratulations! I am envious! But pass us on anyway.

We are inundated with media on a daily basis – news and fiction, people telling us stories and competing for our attention. The notion of story is a big part of how we come to frame events in our own lives.

Sometimes we overdo the whole our-life-is-a-plotline thing, and make decisions that would make for a good story, but a shabby life. We can choose to hurt someone because combat is a bigger climax. We can be coldly unfair in what is a sneering application of what seems to be narrative karma or poetic justice. We accept our vices and weaknesses because there is something literary about that – the very best characters have flaws, and of course all characters in anything can blame whatever they do on the person writing them.

One of my favorite parts of this month’s Fear.less is on page 13 when Roz Zander says how important it is to realize if the story you are living is more dramatic than it needs to be, and that you don’t have to be responsible for bringing some gripping tale into being. Two people who have issues with each other, for example, will typically let it escalate wildly until they talk (or shoot) it out if they’re in a book or on TV, because complication and buildup is a fundamental component of plot. In real life this is a terrible idea – situations and problems should be defused before they explode into something tragic enough to inspire someone’s novel or movie!

Instead, Roz freezes the story in its tracks and subjects what has already happened to rigorous inquiry, looking for patterns and finding explanations, while realizing that “that’s how the story goes” is not acceptable, because this is real life. “The attitude of inquiry is important,” she says. When you look back on your life, are you trying to find out the truth and discover something real and comforting, or does it become English class? Subconsciously, you look for what is “fitting”, you look for the “themes” in your life like you’re writing the Sparknotes about it, as if the threads your life and character are woven from are predetermined.

Personally I love stories and always think of my life this way. Is there a casting issue that will result in the departure of a longtime friend? This can be risky. Being defeated by a problem can get dismissed as “typical”. Roz would ask, well, why is it typical? And why does it have to be typical?

It does not. Your life does not have to be a good story. But it can still be a good life.

I see the heroes of July’s issue of Fear.less as more… minimalistic than most (but certainly not minimal). Despite the hugeness of their careers or circumstances, they all reveal and triumph because of their unrelenting humanity.

William Ury directs the Global Negotiation Initiative. He is what you and I would call a “smooth talker”, but that doesn’t quite capture his ability to stop wars, navigate stormy corporate seas, and overcome the fear that strikes when one is about to talk to Hugo Chávez. What puts William back into a comfortable, courageous balance? A walk through a garden.

Leo Babauta’s blog title, Zen Habits, is an important clue to his approach to daily fear. By embracing simplicity, humility, and honesty, Leo has traveled an upward spiral and become a successful writer, blogger and e-book publisher.

Roz Zander is a therapist and coach, and from her Fear.less story it’s clear why. She provides valuable concrete examples of “reframing your perspective” and simple fear-fighting tools – and concrete examples help, don’t they? She isn’t some sorceress who has “figured things out” – anything she can do, we can do.

Colleen Wainwright is a funny, honest writer-speaker who not only dives deep into the curious world of abandoning “prestigious” jobs to follow your heart and an experience with a life-threatening disease, but was also in Space Jam, perhaps the finest movie ever made.

Then there’s John Thompson, who spent years on death row for a murder he didn’t commit. I can’t do John’s story justice, it would sound like a movie. Just read it. The long transformation he must undergo to survive, a gritty spin on hope and compassion, is unlike anything I’ve ever seen or read about. He will change you, somehow.

Thank you, readers, for allowing us to go on for these three months, so we could share these stories with you.

I found out about this one from Ishita’s friend, Tina. In Jerry Seinfeld’s early days as a comedian, he would write at least a joke a day to stay sharp, and mark an X on his calendar for each day he did so. Eventually “don’t break the chain” became an even greater motivator than “become an excellent comedian”, and his productivity blossomed.

Visually I need something flashier than black Xs (numerous Fear.less blog posts have been quite colorful before I had to change them back) so I have upgraded the Seinfeld chain for my personal use by making multiple chains of colored cells in a spreadsheet instead of a string of Xs. I have a blue chain for writing, a green chain for physical activity, and an important red one, the control chain. It asks a simple question of me: can I simply muster the discipline to do nothing more than remember to fill in the square? I personally am fine with these three but of course Seinfeld’s method can be used for… practicing an instrument daily, cooking your own meals, meditating, praying, calling loved ones… I don’t know. Whatever. The appeal for me is having multiple going at once, because success is pretty to look at.

I’ve been using this tool for a couple weeks now and all chains remain unbroken. Is it a little asinine to have one of them being just for me to remember to fill it in? Maybe. See Jen Louden’s Conditions of Enoughness, where simple steps and perhaps premature acceptance of circumstances are the route to satisfaction and habit-building.

That’s what this is about – habits. Anyone can stand up, pump their fists and say OKAY. I WILL WRITE THE PROPOSAL NOW. NO MORE WAITING, but that is only beating procrastination one dramatic time. Building a habit of diligence, though, that can prevent the problem from even arising. It’s a lot easier to blog for Fear.less when it counts toward my blue chain. And it’s a lot easier to live a healthier lifestyle if it contributes to a highly appealing rope of green squares. Just ask Ishita, or my parents, or anyone really – I am not a diligent guy, and so this tool’s success has made me believe strongly in it. I recommend it to anyone with focus issues and the wish to develop a skill, and suggest that you modify it however you see fit so your progress is gratifying.

So this is sort of me combining Julia  Cameron’s regard for discipline with Chris Guillebeau’s penchant for computerized tools (remember his positive feedback file?) and Jen Louden’s conditions of enoughness with some Seinfeld thrown in for good measure. Another good reason why Fear.less stories are best taken two at a time.

Here's what it looks like. Gold days are tough days, so I can prepare.

On July 4 we Americans celebrate the anniversary of a revolution. Revolutions are all about fear – scary to start, scary to face, scary to finish, even if nobody gets shot by anything heard round the world.

Revolutions can affect an (or create) industry, affect (or create) a nation, or simply change a person. (I can imagine revolutions that would involve the creation of people but that is sadly beyond the scope of this blog.) Revolutions are sudden, and unpredictable.

Objection! The suddenness of revolutions is relative. Our founding fathers didn’t wake up one day deciding to divorce Britain. The reasons and the considerations for this were slow-cooking in their souls long before John Hancock and company set America free in strokes of inky bombast. What it took to declare independence was the decision that it was worth fighting for, which is sudden only as far as there is a discrete entity, the document itself, to commemorate it.

I bet there is a potential revolution in you! Maybe hinted at by an attempt or two at ineffective, putt-putting evolution? (Clever people are always putting those two words together.)  Really though, is there anything that you are pondering a push toward, that might only happen with a move as huge and committed as your signature?

A lot of Fear.less contributors talk about “baby steps”, and small scratches of progress have their place, but Gandhi said “be the change you want to see in the world”, not “slowly work up to being the change you see in the world”. Make it happen. Do it before you psyche yourself out. Unless it is a real revolutionary war, you will probably not be killed. You don’t need to practice more writing to start your book. You don’t need anyone’s permission to start your free online magazine about fear.

In the immortal words of Björk, “declare independence. Don’t let them do that to you!”

Bring... it... on..........

If you kick a tortoise it doesn’t really care. Shell and such. Tortoises are born with shells and don’t really have to exert any effort in using them to protect themselves. Their resilience is a passive skill. You throw a rock, tortoise sits there drooling, rock bounces off, tortoise is chill about it.

Some people can do this. Criticism and expressions of doubt just glance off their indomitable wills. But then there are people like me, and maybe you, who mistakenly believe that as for a tortoise, human resilience is innate and passive, not learned.

Not so. The things we humans have to endure demand pushing back, pushing over, pushing forward. Human resilience is an active skill. We are thinking creatures who generally take mental blows, so our endurance comes from choosing to press on.

Watch Rocky. The definitive underdog story. In the sixth movie he says “You, me, nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.”

I think to develop this skill, one must take risks and expose oneself to potential damage. Speak your mind, make your moves. It can be good to get just a little fatalistic about it. Being vulnerable and under attack gives you a certain amount of freedom to stop caring about what other people expect of you and what other people think is okay. When you are in a fit of mental desperation, you may be amazed at what you are driven to do, at the level of authenticity you feel comfortable expressing because hey, you might as well.

Every hit you take, stop and acknowledge that it hurt, but that you’re still standing. You’re still here. You’ll live. This is one of those things for which stating it proves it.

This is totally empowering. You can get rejected by date after date and not care once you realize that ultimately you don’t have to take any real damage from it or give a shit. Publisher after publisher, parent after overbearing parent. Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt was stretching a little when she said nobody can hurt you without your consent, but certainly no one can maim you without your consent. You don’t have to play by the unspoken rule that some arbitrary number of failures makes it acceptable to give up.

You are welcome to adopt the tortoise’s carefree attitude, just remember you have to build the armor yourself, and choose to hold it up.

Let’s do it. Activate.

Sometimes the best way to be convinced to do something to be threatened. To think about what happens if you don’t do it. Let me illustrate this point with some of my favorite passages from Wikipedia:

“Plaque can also cause irritation to the gums, making them red, tender, or bleeding easily. In some cases, the gums pull away from the teeth, leaving cavities inhabited by bacteria and pus. If not treated, bones around the teeth can be destroyed.”

“External drainage of a tooth abscess may begin as a boil which bursts allowing pus drainage from the abscess, intraorally (usually through the gum) or extra orally.”

“Periodontitis has been linked to increased inflammation in the body. It is through this linked to increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, and atherosclerosis. It also linked in those over 60 to impairments in delayed memory and calculation abilities.”

“Symptoms:

• Halitosis, or bad breath, and a persistent metallic taste in the mouth
• Gingival recession, resulting in apparent lengthening of teeth.
• Deep pockets between the teeth and the gums
• Loose teeth, in the later stages”

The late comedian Mitch Hedberg once said it was as hard to quit smoking as it was to start flossing. But reading these passages makes me want to sprint down to CVS.

Usually I’m not a fan of scare tactics (you may remember that I edit a magazine called Fear.less) but they sure can be effective for getting you to take better care of yourself. By the way, with improved health comes a boost in confidence, and thus your ability to overcome fear.

I used to read Cracked a lot. I even linked to the site on this blog once. I don’t read them much anymore, and one of the reasons is encapsulated by a recent article by their editor. I’m only linking it so you have context for what I’m talking about. It’s called the 10 Most Important Things They Didn’t Teach You in School, and it discusses some of the social issues we face today, such as our harmful lifestyles and our senses of entitlement. It makes a number of strong points, no doubt.

But the tone bothers me, especially at the 10th and final point, which basically says “life sucks, get over it, your dreams will never come true because life is not a movie”.

“Get over it” is horrible, selfish advice and a shortcut to thinking. I think blunt suggestions are attempts by the suggestor to secretly reassure himself of his own security. I think harshness without hope is a waste of time. It’s not manly, it’s not strong and independent, it’s asinine. We have joked about making a super-insensitive Fear.less issue with “DEAL WITH IT, CRYBABY” on the cover and such. Key word, “joked”.

I want to tell you that you, yes you personally, the reader, can have things work out in your life, and are empowered to bring that about. Nothing can take away from that possibility. Not “life isn’t fair”, not “life will always have ups and downs”, not “one day we will all be dead”. You as an individual are immune to generalizations. So what if 50% of marriages end in divorce or 85% of American workers are unhappy (not a real statistic. Well maybe). You could have the traits to avoid these and other pitfalls, or you could have other traits that facilitate the development of those other traits.

There are a lot of Fear.less contributors, some of whom have suffered more than anyone who reads this blog is likely to (Immaculée Ilibagiza, Mawi Asgedom…). But none of the contributors have ever explained that their problems were solved because they stopped being a little crybaby. Those words may sum up how they or you or I feel about our journeys afterward, but they are not the whole story. “Get over it” is an easy answer and we are not satisfied with easy answers and you shouldn’t be either. We want to probe deeply into the fear-fighting process, because so many other sources are throwing stuff at you to be afraid of with no hint of what to do!

Optimism is good for you. Let’s start hopemongering.

I recently read somewhere that busy people are happy people. I probably not-so-recently read it somewhere else, too. Busy people are probably not bored.

In high school, I resented busy people. The kids who joined a slew of clubs, in the name of mastering every musical instrument, sport and charitable act, it annoyed me. Part of that was probably out of jealousy. Yeah, well, those kids couldn’t, uh… sit around and play video games! And they had no time to hang out with me! But they were probably happier than me.

Ah, but guess what. Life is not so facile as to just let us enjoy a simple rule like busy = happy. A lot of busy people, including ones I knew who got their business started in high school, are not happy.

Busy people are happy people? I think the reverse is true – happy people are busy people. The word “busy” is charged with something that I caught onto at a young age but perhaps overdid – pressure. It has a few nuanced definitions, such as being “actively engaged in work or pastime” and “not at leisure” and “not immediately accessible”. (Thanks dictionary.com.) Now, being engaged sounds great. Not at leisure? Not immediately accessible? That’s being trapped. And that blows.

I would like to only be the kind of busy that involves active engagement. The flexibility of one’s time is so vital to comfort. I think it punishes the world to not be immediately accessible. If I have to make a break in my schedule, I want to be chill about it. Exceptions and special occasions are just what happens when life attacks. I don’t want to be busy with anything that I couldn’t be called away from without screaming the skin off somebody’s head. I don’t want to say “can’t help you, I’m busy”, I want to go help them and silently say “I am now busy helping you and soon I will be busy doing what I was originally doing”.

This is the sort of issue from which can spawn parental neglect or bitter burnout. Be engaged and invested, but be free. If you have a routine to stick to, whatever, but ultimately you wear the watch. You.

Those unhappy kids I knew in high school may have been under crushing pressure to get into college or acquiesce to their parents’ wishes. Other bleakly busy people might be using their hustle as an excuse or a distraction. And, you know, no one’s busier than a soldier in a shootout, but I bet he”d like to leave.

I think it’s worth asking ourselves if what we do instead of nothing ties us up in knots or aims to please someone other than ourselves. Julia Cameron speaks highly of discipline in her Fear.less story, but I’ve read her book, and she is pretty wild about the stuff she is disciplined to do.

Keep busy, but keep happy, too.