What Scares the World’s Most Fearless Instagrammers?

It’s their job to risk life and limb in the name of adventure, but these daring souls aren’t immune from everyday phobias.

Explorers, extreme sports professionals and other career daredevils race down mountains, hang out with some of the world’s most dangerous animals and risk their lives daily, so you’d think they’d be pretty hard to scare. Surely mundane stuff like spiders and clowns are nothing compared to a triple spin off a mountain on a snowboard?

To test this theory, we asked four of the most adventurous people on the planet (whose Instagram feeds will also give you serious wanderlust) if anything actually scares them. And guess what – it turns out they’re human after all.

“My job involves me swimming with great white sharks and anacondas and coming face to face with Komodo dragons, grizzly bears and silverback gorillas,” says Catherine. “Although I have a healthy respect for these animals, they don’t scare me.  Humans are far scarier!”

She’s philosophical about the things that really put the frighteners on her: pessimism, forgetting to be thankful and conforming are all on the list. “For me, living on the edge is what makes me feel most alive,” she says. “The thought of losing my imagination and ability to be creative is terrifying.”

This article was originally published in Coach Magazine