Overcoming fear and failure was a pervasive theme in our research and work this past week. If you’re too tough on yourself or your inner critic has taken over, you’ll find good insights here about regaining control and pushing through to success. Enjoy!

Successful Women Make All the Right Mistakes (Rania Anderson, The Way Women Work)

With all the pressure both women and men feel to be perfect, the BIG team likes the message here about learning from failures.

What Fear Can Teach Us (Karen Thompson Walker, TED Talk)

Pick up some great insights here for looking at fear in a fresh way…as a motivator for imagination. ”Fear is … a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.”

The Introvert’s 2013 Business and Leadership Success Pledge (Lisa Petrilli, C Level Strategies)

“Keep in mind that being an introvert means you get your energy from your inner world of ideas, thoughts, dreams and images instead of from the outer world of people and activities.” If you draw your energy from within, you’ll love Lisa’s 10-point pledge for success in 2013.

The New Social Leadership: Move From Fear To Freedom (Christine Comaford, Forbes)

“Old School management is synonymous with what many people think is leadership. This model operates on fear—the team member must perform or we’ll remove their ability to pay their mortgage, kids’ educational expenses, etc. Fear pushes people to take action.”

Overcoming The Tyranny Of The “Lizard Brain” (Davender Gupta, Business at the Speed of People)

Coach Davendar offers up a three-step process for moving task from the unknown into your comfort zone.

Giving ourselves permission to learn from failure. When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~Barbara Bloom