My greatest fear in life is not dying… but rather not living while I’m alive. In other words, not living up to my full potential. That’s far more scary for me than death. I’ve looked fear in the face, a few times, stared it down and won. But now as I’m taking a new direction in my career and life paths it returns, uninvited,  like an unwanted house guest — manageable but inconvenient.

Fear often gets in the way of our creativity, relationships and pursuit of happiness, so I was delighted to discover a free online  magazine, aptly named fearlessstories.com that puts it all in perspective and delivers brave new stories by courageous people. The latest issue covers everything from the biology of fear (who knew our brain’s response to fear is biological not just psychological?) to stories about taking big scary career risks to achieve big amazing results, to articles about taming fear through mindfulness and bringing any painful crisis to its knees through compassion– for ourselves and others.

The difference between success and failure is often not because of  better talent, ideas or skills, it’s courage to act… to show Fear the door and invite Boldness, Gutsy and Moxie to the party.

So if fear is blocking your potential, creativity or ability to rock this life, check out fearlessstories.com for some worthy inspiration. And if you’d like to read my own story and biggest life lesson in overcoming fear –and I mean that life-altering kind of fear– that changes you at a cellular level, and reminds you not to wait until fear subsides before you decide to live fully and freely, refer to my  blog post of Oct. 2, 2009, archived under Personal Insights, entitled ‘Someday is not on the calendar.’

Thanks for being here. Stay fearless.