“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” ~Nelson Mandela

First, I slept in a snow shelter at -20°C.

Second, I stood alone on a stage in Montreal and tried to make strangers laugh.

Third, I stuck out my thumb on the side of a highway with nothing but a backpack and hoped that a stranger would take me home, 1,200 kilometers away.

I did all of these things deliberately, on purpose, as part of a project I called my Year of Fear. The idea was simple: face one new personal fear every month for a …