Michelle Poler : The Art of Non-Conformity

Life

“Instead of perceiving fear as an obstacle, I choose to see it as an opportunity.”: Michelle Poler at WDS

Next month we’ll release the first round of tickets for WDS 2017, a week-long gathering of creative, remarkable people—taking place next summer in beautiful Portland, Oregon.

But first, we’re rolling out a series of speaker videos from the 2016 event. Following our first speaker, Jonathan Fields, we welcomed courageous video blogger, Michelle Poler, to the stage.

Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela to a family of holocaust survivors, Michelle was accustomed to living with fear. It kept her safe and comfortable. But when she moved to New York to pursue a Masters in Branding at the School of Visual Arts, Michelle quickly realized that NYC was not for the fearful.

Et Cetera

100 Days Without Fear: A Daily Video Experiment

A few months ago, Michelle Poler moved from Venezuela to New York to pursue a Master's Degree. While she was there, she started a project called 100 Days Without Fear to systematically combat the things that she was afraid of.

This fun project recently wrapped up with daily videos of her teaching a Zumba class, crowd surfing, posing nude for a drawing class, interviewing strangers, and attempting dozens of other interesting tasks.