If you’ve ever been so deep in a hole that you couldn’t see a way out, or managed someone whose plaintive victimhood drove you mad, you might have been dealing with Learned Helplessness.

Does either of these comments resonate?

“I’m useless at this.  It doesn’t matter what I do, it’ll still be wrong.  I’ll just keep my head down and hope no one picks me out.”

OK, marks out of 10 on the defensiveness scale for the following remark:

“He’s being defensive – I’m just realistic”.

Personally, I’d give it a 9½.  I consider myself: pragmatic; expert; honest and forthright.  You consider me: resistant, argumentative, cynical and rude.  I think I’m simply giving you the benefit of my considerable experience to educate you on the flaws in your argument.  You think I’m negative with a major attitude problem.

What’s a work-related mugging? Basically, it’s the same as any other sort of mugging – you’ve got the goods, and someone more powerful takes them away.

Two classic examples occur when you work for (or with) a Glory Hunter.

Feeling stressed at the thought of being left ashore in a sea of tweets, blogs, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook? It’s time for a little perspective on Personal Branding – the current ‘on-trend’ activity for developing your personal social media (SoMe) strategy.

The ‘Irish Broadband’ issue is once again in the news. Alex White tells us we’re all going to have high-speed broadband by 2020!  The Government, the ESB and Vodafone are tripping over each other digging holes to bring broadband (fibre broadband no less), to rural Irish homes.  The EU tells us that Ireland is below average for broadband penetration (67% versus EU average of 76% in 2013).

If you hate business networking events because you’re afraid of getting stuck with the resident wallflower, or you’re afraid you ARE the resident wallflower, it’s time to set yourself free.  Forget stereotypes of people swapping business cards and talking AT one another.  In fact, why not drop the NETWORKING word altogether?

How would you like to develop business relationships instead?  It sounds the same thing, but it all depends on your mind set.  

Whether you want to become more effective in your current role, or are looking for a way into that dream job, it’s useful to have advocates on your behalf.  You want other people to talk about you in a positive way when you are not there, i.e. you want them to recommend you. 

Did you know exactly what you wanted to do leaving school or filling out college application forms at seventeen years of age?

Even if you did – is that what you still want, and are you currently doing it? 

Few of us realise our dream career.  We end up in our first job somewhat by accident, and many of us remain passive or unfulfilled throughout our working life.

Become the fly on the wall at the Monday morning management meeting, and you will see the essence of any organisation.  Research confirms our suspicions that most meetings are useless.  In their 2012 survey, Wasting time at Work, salary.com revealed 47% of respondents rated “attending too many meetings” as their biggest time thief.

Many of you will recognise the following: