I really rate the titles in the 'Overcoming' series. All are written by practising psychologists, yet in a highly accessible, practical style. Melanie Fennell’s book in the series is a great example. Dr Fennell is an experienced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy teacher and practitioner, and it’s the CBT approach that informs the thinking and exercises in this book. The thinking is robust, yet wears its provenance lightly, and the exercises are paced to encourage step-by-step progress. So this isn’t a ton of theory: it’s a practical workbook to guide the user through the necessary stages of dealing with what can be a crippling problem.

Just what low self-esteem is, its origins and its impact, are the subject of the early parts of the book. There’s a brief questionnaire to help you work out where your self-esteem may need a boost. The section on 'how low self-esteem develops' plots the path of 'how you got to here' in a way that makes total sense if only someone had said so earlier. We can then behave as if we have low self-esteem permanently installed on our hard drive, reinforcing our negative self-perception.

There are conflicting reports out there about multi-tasking. It’s something we can all do and should do. But wait. No, it’s something only women are good at and men are woeful at. Or then again, it’s a productivity drain no matter who’s doing it… We’re entitled to feel a bit confused.

Personally, I find doing multiple tasks simultaneously to be draining. I’m someone who likes to focus on something and get it done. However, I also tend to waffle and have perfectionism deep in the genes, both of which mean I can easily spend way too long on the one thing. I’ve tried different tips and techniques from the productivity gurus out there and here are some that I’ve found helpful:

We’ve all heard of the 'elevator pitch', right? The one where we find ourselves in the lift (aka elevator) with the CEO/boss/person who can make Big Decisions, and make a winning pitch to them before the lift reaches their (top) floor. In some big cities, that’s going to take quite some time; in others it might be a minute. But you get the point: keep it short, simple and sweet. So how do you create your elevator pitch? Try these 6 tips:

1. Craft a short speech that covers: who you are, what you are currently working on and what the benefits of that project are. Feel free to add in other points such as why you’re excited about it or how it builds on a prior success.
2. Get it written down. You may want to write up some bullet points on an index card, scribble a Post-It flurry, make a Mind Map, or dictate a first draft to a transcription app.
3. Get on your feet and read it aloud. Sitting muttering your elevator pitch will only prepare you for… sitting and muttering. Run through it once or twice and time yourself using a stopwatch or digital timer.
4. Edit and refine your pitch to ensure it’s coming in at about two minutes.
5. Now record your practice pitch, play it back and note where you may be able to add greater emphasis, a killer statistic, a pause or a question.
6. One or two more run-throughs and you’re good to go - all you have to do now is make sure you’re in the right elevator at the right time!

This process gets you in the habit of being succinct and to the point. It’s great if you have a tendency to waffle or find you can get tongue-tied talking to influencers.

As we come to the end of what for many of us has been a challenging year, and are probably facing more of the same next year (and let’s be honest, for a few more years), I want to offer some suggestions on getting and staying a bit more positive. Stay with me here - this isn’t a ‘think happy thoughts and you’ll get everything you want’ issue - oh no. Personally I don’t subscribe to the ‘happyism’ prevalent in airport books that hail from the land where two-thirds of global anti-depressant sales are made. This is about learning from those who seem better able to surf the tough times (they get them too) and building on those lessons.

Here are five suggestions to try:

So while the great and good enjoy the sun, snow and schmoozing in Davos, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll have to say about executive pay. We’ve been hearing a lot about fat cats, bankers’ bonuses and spreading perceptions of inequality, even protests. But is it really that bad? Should you know anyone who’s going to the Swiss speech-fest, here are a few stats to enliven the conversation.

According to research by the University of Exeter Business School, executive pay is a 'potential timebomb'. Professor Annie Pye’s study reports that the average annual salary for a CEO of a FTSE 100 listed company was £150,000 in 1987. Today that figure is £4million.

People who want to boost their confidence often compare themselves (negatively) to those who seem to be brimful and bursting with the stuff. Doing this negatively doesn’t help. However, we can make a really useful project of observing and studying the people who seem confident, and breaking down their 'code for confidence'.

1. Identify two or three people you think are confident (and this next bit’s important), in a way you like. It’s no use studying people whose confidence jars with you, or would make you cringe if you tried to mimic it. Go for exemplars who model confidence in a way that sits well with you. These people may be on TV, or doing stuff on YouTube, maybe they are written about in books. Or they may be colleagues, friends and relatives, or people in your community.
2. Now study them closely: how do they 'do' confidence? What do they actually do that makes them seem confident to you? We need to brush up our grammar here: we’re after verbs. For example, they stand tall, they pause when they speak, they make eye contact with each person around the meeting table, they smile more than they frown. Make notes on each person for the same criteria: it may be how they speak, or how they handle a group, or how they make a point really clearly, or how they stand. If possible, observe how they handle setbacks, such as tricky questions: what do they do then? You will need to gather as much information as you possibly can, for each exemplar, against each of your criteria.
3. Next, stand back and look for what your different exemplars have in common. Is it the level of eye contact, or the way they walk? Do they ask genuine and respectful questions? Do they use facial expression and gesture to put others at ease?
4. When you have a basic 'code for confidence', review it for compatibility with your own values. Eliminate anything that you would never, ever do because it just isn’t you. Put anything you’re hesitating slightly over on hold. Focus on the core of your confidence code with what’s left. What you now have is a code you can put into practice.
5. Try out one thing at a time, knowing that this may be like walking in new shoes - a little strange at first, but fine once you get used to it - and add other elements steadily, refining as you go.

For more on boosting your confidence, and a great in-depth resource, I recommend Melanie Fennell’s book 'Overcoming Low Self-Esteem'.

I’m often asked about confidence: how to get it and then get more of it. The thing is, I think that confidence isn’t something we can just go out and get. It’s a combination of practising confident thoughts, feelings and behaviours - and then practising some more - these three aspects of confidence interact.

Thoughts. Getting the thoughts part right may take some deep digging - but I think it’s well worth it. By the way, it’s not just a case of ‘think confident thoughts’ and ta dah! Oooh get you, all shiny and confident. No. First we need to notice our thoughts, especially when we’re in situations when we’d like to be a bit more confident, but just when we need it, what confidence we have seems to desert us. What are you saying to yourself?

Top corporate recruitment firm MBS Group has talked to CEOs who have made the switch from running ‘Big Corp’ to smaller concerns. It makes for insightful reading. MBS Group’s report cites six key reasons why CEOs are packing their bags:

1. Exhaustion - this one is gaining coverage since the Lloyds Banking Group’s CEO, Antonio Horta-Osoria, took leave of absence due to stress and fatigue earlier this year. At time of writing, Mr H-O is saying he now wants to return, but shareholders are asking for assurances that this time he’ll be back for good before they reopen the door. It will be interesting to see if and how he is able to convince them, especially as another reason CEOs give for moving on is…
2. Media scrutiny - I’ve heard that many a CEO will say that their financial PR agency is the team that keeps them in a job. Whilst that’s rather damning about the CEO’s team and the trust they have in one another, it’s also an acknowledgement of how corporate leaders are much more in the public eye these days, and frequently find themselves as media fodder.
3. Pressure to deliver results - this one confounds me just a little: didn’t they know about that when they took the job? Aren’t there ways that a candidate’s ability to handle pressure can be assessed during recruitment? Yes, at the moment there is close scrutiny and pressure on organisations that are struggling to deliver results, yet I’d have thought that this is a case of reaping what organisations and their leaders have sown.
4. Losing talent - seems to me that they themselves are part of the loss. There is often an orderly queue behind the departing leader. Also, especially in tough times, an organisation that has just become leaderless can prove a happy hunting ground for talent scouts looking to lure away the disenfranchised. There may also be a sense of despair at the organisation’s inability to hang on to its best people.
5. Corporate nonsense - amen to that. If all you’re doing is playing B*@$%^it Bingo in interminable meetings then it may well be time to move on. Megafirms can get really bogged down in process and lose sight of why they’re on the planet at all. One of our clients has a 30-minute rule for meetings; it can be devilishly effective.
6. Personal reasons - both men and women talk in the MBS report about wanting to spend more time with children and spouse, having time for exercise and even (whisper this) hobbies. This generation of leaders seems to have a vision of success that includes their nearest and dearest and a life beyond work.

So what’s to be done?

“What am I supposed to tell them?” is something I’m being asked a fair bit by managers at the moment. People want to know what’s going on. Us humans need more certainty in troubled times. And there’s the rub: because something of which we can be pretty certain is that times are going to pretty tough for the foreseeable future. Indeed, times will be both tough and er, uncertain. People want to know what’s happening, but even the elected leaders of powerful nations often don’t seem know what’s going on and can seem lost for words, let alone solutions. So what can a manager tell their team? Here are some thoughts:

Don’t tell them, “It’s all going to be OK”. Although, if you can prove it is going to be OK, I suspect the next meetings of DAVOS, the G20, the ECB and various national banks might well want to hear from you.

It’s soup time again. Here’s a hearty one I often make whilst courgettes are still around. Mind you, with my neighbour’s fig tree still fruiting, this may soon apply all year… This makes enough for three to four meal-sized servings. You will need:

1 large onion, peeled, halved and then very thinly sliced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
2 sticks of celery, washed and sliced
2 large or 3 small courgettes, washed, topped and tailed
1 clove of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
6-8 medium to large mushrooms (chestnut have a good flavour), washed and wiped
500 ml hot vegetable stock, such as Bouillon
1 small (150g) can of cannellini beans
1 400g can of chopped tomatoes
Sundried tomato paste
Dollop of good quality pesto sauce (optional)