Uncertain times may well favour the brave, but the keys to survival and growth are agile and pragmatic responses to changing circumstances. To maintain momentum, you need to constantly review all aspects of your business or career.

Responses to disruption vary from fearful avoidance to an unhealthy over-indulgence. To convert our anxieties about invasive innovation, we need to work with it rather than be driven by it.

We often make big plans about things to do over the next year. Maybe we should try to do less.

Big financial words often describe business concepts you already intuitively apply. You can become more literate by applying some simple arithmetic to your thinking.

Intense focus can yield great returns, but to move forward in business or life we need to take our attention beyond our immediate tasks. You can't expect much inspiration to enter your brain if you don't make any room for it to enter.

Sometimes some of our best thinking comes about when we are not thinking at all. Alan suggests a few effortless ways to help new ideas arrive over the holidays.

Your business or your career can tick along quiet nicely, but are you optimising them? Exploiting untapped business opportunities and building fulfilling careers often means taking a risk. Your challenge is to take some and not take too many.

Leadership is crucial in critical situations. It doesn’t mean you should charge head on into troubled waters. Real leaders don’t shy away from the situation. But they assess it rationally, clarify it for their team and get everyone working on the best possible solution. It may not work, but it will give you the best chance of survival.

In this age of entrepreneurial mania, it seems everyone wants to start their own business. There are plenty of arguments why you should. Here's six reasons why you shouldn't.

The test of any new idea is not how clever it is. It's whether it makes something easier to do.