Mark Twain said: “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.” While that may or may not be true, Moneyball, the Brad Pitt movie about the use of statistics in baseball hit a home run at the box office last weekend. What can you learn from this movie about attracting and retaining the best? Plenty.

The movie is based on Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, a book by Michael Lewis about the Oakland A’s baseball team.

Now that I have your attention, I’m not talking about a Hollywood tour bus (a trippy ride I took recently with four teenagers–could be the subject of another blog post) but I can’t resist commenting on the current debate about Charlie Land.

Is he mentally ill, the pundits ponder? Alcoholic or addicted to crack? (Still, after three treatment attempts?) Acting and joking?

Hey everybody! Turn off your computers and think for a change. (Okay, after you’ve read this post.) I’ve written about this before but the problem is only getting worse so I feel the need to beret you again.

All of our interconnectivity has lead social scientists to coin a new symptom: FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” For those of you who are wired 18 hours a day–with cell phones, email and Facebook connected directly to your veins–you may be damaging not only your personal relationships but also your brain.

Public opinion surveys consistently show that the #1 fear of most people — greater than drowning — is the fear of public speaking. Obviously, Ann Coulter has no such fear. While I hate to write about her for fear of giving her more publicity than I think she deserves, I have to mention the recent Ottawa debacle. It’s not that I don’t want to give credit to credible conservative commentators’, I do. George Will, for example, is both reasoned and readable — two things that Coulter is not.

Why can’t we all grow up? That’s the thought that comes to me while watching the kvetching, screaming and tantrum throwing that’s surrounded the health care vote. For some time, both sides have been like four year-olds, squabbling over buckets and rakes in the sandbox. My disgust turned to horror this week when the brawl turned truly ugly by the degenerating into racial slurs and escalating into violence. Unfortunately, I see the same kind of escalation in the workplace.

Denver lives and dies by the Broncos. Thus it has ever been and probably always will be. Because of the collective sports fever, ending a season that started out with a bang of 6-0 and ended up a whimper of 8-8 sent the city into a collective funk. But in the midst of all that a very public squabble arose between the young Turk coach Josh McDaniels and two of his star players: wide receiver Brandon Marshall and tight end Tony Scheffler. McDaniels announced two days before the season finale that he was benching these two players. In addition, just before that he had publicly questioned Marshall’s ankle injury. Not nice to imply that one of your players is a wimp!

There’s been much ado and tisk-tisking about the Salahis’ –now infamous White House gate crashers. Most people seem to assume that the Secret Service royally messed up and of course that’s perhaps true. But the reality is many of those same people who are aghast at that breach couldn’t defend their own security systems.

If you’re in corporate America, you’re probably used to key cards, sign-in sheets and the like but how safe are these systems? Do you test for leaks?

Ugh! We’ve endured a week of bad celebrity behavior. Serena Williams threw a profanity-laced finger pointing fit at a U.S. Open lines woman on Sunday. That same night, Kanye West leaped onto the stage to steal the thunder from Taylor Swift at the VMA’s. (MTV’s video music awards, for those of you who don’t have fifteen year old, music obsessed, twins as I do!) And don’t even get me started on the outburst by Representative Joe Wilson during President Obama’s health care speech.

Hurrah! I always like being right!

A new study has confirmed what I’ve been telling you for years: multi tasking is not good for you, no matter how skillful you think you are. While we may believe that we’re paying attention to two things at once, brain scans show the opposite.

What happens is that the brain actually has to perform a complex switching mechanism between activities. What this means is that it takes time and energy for the brain to make this switch, and then more time and energy to refocus on the first activity.

When you pass on to the ’sweet by an by’ what will people be saying about you? The passing of the great liberal lion, Ted Kennedy, offers us a chance to reflect on this question. In my experience, there’s no better way to measure whether we’re accomplishing our personal and career goals than to reflect on our own funeral.Love his political rhetoric or not, everyone agrees that he lived a big life, consistent with his own principles to never give up the fight for the little guy. He overcame his personal failings to live a life dedicated to his country and his family.