Fearless stories. The mission of living life fearlessly is one we share, as a community of people inspired by Jen. As I mentioned in previous posts, YouFearless.com will become a place where we inspire each other and find new people who can benefit from eliminating fear from the equation. Some posts will focus on one fearless person, while others (like today’s) will include a few more opportunities to check in with fearless people and stories, including Dave Linn!

You have to be fearless to share, and I challenge you to do so. I hope you will email me (Janet Balis Allen) at jsbalis@aol.com with any stories you might want to share.  Everyone reading this post has a story to share, and I hope you will.

The article below is from Judith Hammerman, a member of my Cycle for Survival team who recently wrote a story for The Huffington Post, inspired by Arianna Huffington’s new book On Becoming Fearless. Speaking about Judith’s own experiences facing fear, she highlights inspiration - from Steve Jobs to Jen herself. Here is an excerpt:

“Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, love more, and all good things will be yours. ~ Swedish Proverb

At some point over the last few years, I started thinking about fear. This isn't the scary movie, dark and rainy knock at the door fear. This is the fear that slowly stirs you out of bed in the middle of the night, the fear that speaks quietly and reminds you of the most essential parts of you. It's the fear that holds you back from being everything you ever dreamed you could be in this lifetime, your best and highest self in work, in love and in life. I started thinking about this kind of fear during a time where I'd had a few personal and professional wins and just as many set backs. For awhile I just observed, but then I started realizing everything I wanted in life was just on the other side of comfort. “ - Judith Hammerman

I encourage you read more of Judith’s post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-hammerman/embracing-discomfort-what_b_1023678.html.

Fearless Shout-outs.  And now a few fearless shout-outs:

To Sydney Becker... Our first fearless shout-out goes to 13-year old Sydney Becker. Last week, Sydney finished the final chemotherapy infusion of a 7+ month treatment cycle. Congrats, Sydney - you’re an inspiration to all of us! •

To Jon Sierk… Jon, a college friend and soccer teammate of Dave’s, must be fearless, if only based on the name of his Cycle for Survival team – Buns of Steel!  Dave relays that Jon isn’t quite as ripped now as he was during his soccer days, but he nevertheless confirmed his fearlessness by sending a very thoughtful letter to Dave about what Jen and Cycle for Survival mean to him. Jon is a pediatric dentist in Colorado. Every year, he travels to Chicago to ride in Cycle for Survival, and in conjunction with his fundraising, he provides free mouthguards to his patients to prevent sports injuries. 

To Dave Linn… I’m happy to report that Dave continues to live life fearlessly. Dave checks in with this update:

“Hi Fearless Friends. All things considered, I guess I’m doing ok. As we all do, I still miss Jen like crazy, but some of the tears are slowly being replaced by smiles and happy memories of our time together. Whenever I get down, I think about the incredible commitment Jen made – no matter what happened to her, no matter how many invasive surgeries, no matter how many toxic chemotherapy treatments, no matter how much pain she was in, her commitment was that she would do everything possible to help the millions of other rare cancer patients. And now it’s up to us to continue that commitment…please help me do so!”  - Dave Linn

Thank you, Dave! I can personally say that you were absolutely inspiring at the recent Cycle kick-off event in NYC. It was heartfelt, meaningful and motviating.  Dave spoke right after the Cycle team showed this video, which they said is the start of the conversation about how Jen inspired so many people through Cycle for Survival: http://tinyurl.com/JenInspiration

To Jen's Study Group...And our final fearless shout-out goes to Jen’s Harvard Business School study group. No one knew how much procrastination bothered Jen, more than this group of people. In honor of Jen’s push to always get Cycle teams registered as soon as possible, her HBS Study Group issued the “Fearless Registration Challenge”: Register 400 bikes between now and Thanksgiving and the Study Group will make an incredible $100,000 donation to Cycle!  It's on at www.cycleforsurvival.org!