Deep-seated fears – of looking ridiculous, losing social status, speaking up, and much, much more – saddle children in the middle school lunchroom, adults on the therapist’s couch, and even, my research has found, executives in the C-Suite. While few executives talk about them, deep and uncontrolled private fears can spur defensive behaviors that undermine how they and their colleagues set and execute company strategy. (Harvard Business Review)

Shipping has been in the news recently because of a protracted labor dispute affecting nearly 30 ports on the West Coast. An uneasy, nine-month-long negotiation – between the organizations representing 14,000 workers who unload containers from ships and the large companies who own those ships – has tentatively ended, and last Saturday, full port operations resumed. For the next few months, the industry will power through a backlog of ships in need of unloading, and then shipping – whose importance to the American economy too often goes unremarked – will become invisible again. (The Atlantic)

One of the hardest obstacles I have had to learn to overcome is shaking off rude customers. There are some people who look at any salesperson as the enemy, and for some reason feel entitled to be rude to them. While there are many ways to overcome this, whenever it happened to me it affected my attitude for the rest of the day. Over time, I started paying more attention to my mentality. I focused on and practiced positivity, and I noticed my sales results increased. What's more interesting is how adopting a positive mindset has helped in all aspects of business and in life. (Inc.)

Stepping away from work to enjoy personal time is stressful if you’re an extreme A-type personality. Taking time away to enjoy the holidays, vacations or weekends with your family and friends can seem like an overwhelming lull in work. If you’re a workaholic who has a difficult time disengaging from your duties, then maybe it’s time to realign your work and personal time habits. Take a look at these three ways to keep your mind off work during your downtime. (Fortune)

Can a job just be a job? Not anymore. Faced with a cadre of young workers who say they want to make a difference in addition to a paycheck, employers are trying to inject meaning into the daily grind, connecting profit-driven endeavors to grand consequences for mankind. (The Wall Street Journal)

Global companies want business graduates with language skills, particularly the major European languages but also Mandarin Chinese, or Putonghua, as it is known locally. For roles in the financial services industry such as at investment banks it is fast becoming vital, according to recruiters and leading business schools. (BusinessBecause)

It is easy for a visitor to Rio to feel that nothing is amiss in Brazil. The middle classes certainly know how to live: with Copacabana and Ipanema just minutes from the main business districts a game of volleyball or a surf starts the day. Hedge-fund offices look out over botanical gardens and up to verdant mountains. But stray from comfortable districts and the sheen fades quickly. Favelas plagued by poverty and violence cling to the foothills. So it is with Brazil’s economy: the harder you stare, the worse it looks. (The Economist)

An International Monetary Fund team agreed to lend Ghana almost $1 billion to help boost foreign-exchange reserves and bolster Africa’s worst-performing currency. The agreement includes a three-year loan program of 660 million Special Drawing Rights, or $933 million, Joel Toujas-Bernate, head of the mission, said in an interview on Thursday in Accra, the capital. The plan will be presented to the IMF’s board for approval in April, with the first payment of about $100 million to be made shortly after, he said. (Bloomberg)

Stumble into a Madrid bar at the tail end of November, and you may see a partying sustainability executive. The corporate world’s triple bottom line enthusiasts sweep the campus of IE Business School each year before Christmas for one of sustainability's big annual bashes. Now in its tenth year, the Social Responsibility Forum has come on leaps and bounds. (BusinessBecause)

You spend two years consuming case studies and running projects. You absorb the best practices, mastering the mechanics of various industries and specialties. When your dean delivers his graduation address, you’ll likely hear something like this: "Now, your education really begins." Wait, what were the past two years for? (Poets & Quants)

Google Inc. nurtured YouTube into a cultural phenomenon, attracting more than one billion users each month. Still, YouTube hasn’t become a profitable business. The online-video unit posted revenue of about $4 billion in 2014, up from $3 billion a year earlier, according to two people familiar with its financials, as advertiser-friendly moves enticed some big brands to spend more. But while YouTube accounted for about 6% of Google’s overall sales last year, it didn’t contribute to earnings. (The Wall Street Journal)

On Thursday, the FCC is expected to approve new rules that – depending on which side you believe – either ensure a fair Internet or smother it with unnecessary regulation. The FCC's vote will allow it to assert extra authority over the Internet to establish net neutrality. It's like equal opportunity for Internet speeds and access to websites. No unfair fast/slow lanes. No blocking of legal services on your phone, computer or tablet. (CNN/Money)

"Have you heard the news, everyone’s talking / Life is good ’cause everything’s awesome." Sure, they’re the lyrics from that ridiculously infectious ode to positivity from The Lego Movie. But they could easily double as the opening sentence in most small business optimism reports these days. After several rough years on Main Street, the mood among small employers started to turn north last year, surged during the holidays, and has remained upbeat to start 2015. (The Washington Post)

When you’re running a billion-dollar tech company, there isn’t a lot of time to stop running, step back, and take in all that you’ve built. For Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz, those moments have probably happened twice. Once was in 2008 when she was in the hospital after giving birth to her first child, and her husband and cofounder, Kevin, had to leave to let their first employee into the office. "I’ll never forget that," says Hartz, now a mother of two running Eventbrite’s eight offices and 500 employees. (Fast Company)

With millions of households across the country struggling to have enough to eat, and millions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is increasingly being seen as a serious environmental and economic issue. A report released Wednesday shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. (The New York Times)

One of the most frustrating parts of the sluggish recovery has been paltry wage gains for most workers. The stock market may be booming, corporate profits increasing, and home values rising, but middle and lower-class workers often don't truly feel the benefit of such improvements unless wages rise. (The Atlantic)

The emergency cash fund is supposed to help people keep up with their bills after an emergency or a job loss. But for many Americans living on low wages or paying down debt, building a fund is out of reach. Roughly one fourth of consumers have more credit card debt than emergency savings, according to a survey released Monday by Bankrate.com. Another 13 percent don’t have savings or credit card debt, which leaves them vulnerable to taking on debt when emergencies happen. (The Washington Post)

On the surface, comprehensive financial planners provide advice and services in areas such as investments, retirement, cash flow, and asset protection. We need to drill deeper, however, to get at a planning firm’s core purpose. After exploring this question over recent months, my staff and I have agreed that our core purpose is to transform the financial and emotional well-being of people. That’s the part of our work that gets us out of bed in the morning. (Money)

2015 looks set to be a banner year for mergers and acquisitions. Which is saying something -- 2014 was extremely busy in this regard, with total worldwide M&A volume hitting $3.5 trillion. That amount was the highest since 2007, and nearly 50 percent over 2013's tally, according to Thomson Reuters. North America was responsible for a bit less than half of that total. (Daily Finance)

There are many gauges of the depth and breadth of economic inequality, and they often measure what middle-income working people have today against what they had prior to 1980 – that time when homes were affordable, along with doctor visits and college educations. Yet few of the astonishing charts and metrics that have captured this widening gulf explain how it all came about. So when economist William Lazonick pointed a finger at a very specific aspect of corporate behavior, people took note. (Capital & Main)

First in Detroit, then in Stockton, Calif., and now in New Jersey, judges and other top officials are challenging the widespread belief that public pensions are untouchable. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey delivered the latest blow on Tuesday, when he proposed to freeze that state’s public pension plans and move workers into new ones intended not to overwhelm future budgets or impose open-ended demands on taxpayers. (The New York Times)

We all need friends at work. Looking for advice on a project? Want to celebrate a major client win or milestone? Need to vent about how demanding, controlling, unreasonable, ignorant, awful, and stupid the boss is? That’s what friends are for. And there are proven benefits to such relationships. Research from Gallup has shown that people who have best friends at work are more engaged, and that their organizations show higher profitability and customer loyalty than those in which close friendships between colleagues are less common. (Harvard Business Review)

When we talk about mentorship in the workplace, we often focus on finding one person who can help to guide us through the challenges we will face at work. It might be better to think about the set of people you need to have around you to help you succeed. With that in mind, here are a few people who should be part of your mentoring team. (Fast Company)

Just as we procrastinate when it comes to work, exercise, or other activities, we are probably also procrastinating when it’s time to go to bed. A June 2014 study published by researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that the 177 participants typically experienced moderate levels of "bedtime procrastination," defined as going to bed later than intended even though there are no external circumstances accountable for doing so. (Fast Company)