“Shut off inbox notifications.” “Only check email once in the morning and once in the afternoon – no more, no less.” “Set an ‘out of office’ response to let people know you’re focusing on work and not checking email.” Email management advice like this is commonly espoused by work and career experts who warn that the inbox is the ultimate productivity-killer.

Throughout the interview process we’re usually so focused on being the ideal candidate we neglect to do our due diligence on our prospective employers. I don’t mean the basic recognizance required for interview preparation. I’m referring to asking the right questions about the corporate culture, and the person you’ll be directly reporting to.

Australian jewelry designer and entrepreneur Samantha Wills started her business with a brave move some 12 years ago, when she packed her belongings into her Toyota hatchback, left her small hometown of Port Macquarie and drove to Sydney with the ambition to make it big. Her rise to success was not an easy journey – but Wills has certainly made it. She grew her business from hyper-local to international, starting at a local market in Sydney, Australia, all while she was in her 20s.

These days we see stories about being addicted to everything. Some addictions, such as alcohol and drug use are deadly serious and business owners must address them with care. For example, in 2014 an estimated 2 million Americans were dependent on prescription opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  “Every 19 minutes someone dies from accidental drug overdose,” according to Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “Most of the time it is from prescription drugs.

When you’re an entrepreneur, you find yourself having to tell your story over and over again. Traditional thinking has taught us to master an “elevator pitch,” quickly describing what it is your business does. While the elevator pitch certainly has its place and time, I think that it has started to lose its luster. After a while, all pitches sound the same, and while they usually do a good job of describing what you do, they almost always fail to explain why.

Shutterstock Conviction in a leader is an incredibly valuable yet increasingly rare trait. It’s in short supply because our brains are wired to overreact to uncertainty with fear. As uncertainty increases, the brain shifts control over to the limbic system, the place where emotions, such as anxiety and panic, are generated. This brain quirk worked well eons ago, when cavemen entered an unfamiliar area and didn’t know who or what might be lurking behind the bushes.

Shutterstock Dear Liz, I have an internal debate going on in my head and you are just the person to help me sort it out. I’ve been working for seven years, the first two as a National Accounts Rep and the past five years as a Senior Service Analyst.

Shutterstock Most of us have been taught to write our resumes in the worst style imaginable — a dry, terse and governmental kind of zombie-speak that doesn’t exist anywhere on earth outside of the business world. We’ve been taught to write about ourselves without any hint of spark or personality.

Voom judges include Richard Branson and Peter Kelly (photo: Virgin Media Business) This week marks the finale of an unusual pitch competition sponsored by Virgin Media Business (the business broadband division of Virgin Media). More than 3,000 entrepreneurs from the U.K. and Ireland took part in VOOM 2016 and submitted pitches for the opportunity to pitch face-to-face to some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet.

By Julian Birkinshaw LEON NEAL,SCOTT HEPPELL/AFP/Getty Images Leadership is the art of making difficult judgments in the face of uncertainty, and it is about shaping a path for others to follow. The political turmoil of the last few days has offered up all sorts of lessons about how to fail – and occasionally how to succeed – as a leader.