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.

You may not have the arm (now recovered from rotator cuff surgery) but you may have the same dilemma: to retire or not to retire?

And, like the famously waffling QB, you may change your mind.

For the second summer in a row, Brett Favre, the holder of every major NFL career passing record reversed his decision to suit up for his rival The Minnesota Vikings, hoping to help them capture their first Super Bowl. After spending 16 years with Green Bay, Favre will face them on the line. Most Minnesota fans cheered but a few hissed and booed and promptly produced black t-shirts reading “Brett Who” and “What the Favre.”

Say what you will about former President Bill Clinton, but everyone who has met him swears he has that gift of making the person he’s talking to feel as if no one else exists on the planet. Love him or hate him, he managed to use his charm and stature to rescue two American journalists convicted of illegally entering North Korea. Photos showed Kim Jong beaming as he stood beside his guest.

Allegedly, the trip–described as strictly humanitarian by the White House–had been in the works for weeks. The politically savvy families of American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, had helped set up the meeting, after giving the Korean leader a choice of American dignitaries, including Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Bill Richardson.

In a George Clooney move right out of Ocean’s Eleven, Seattle bank teller, Jim Nicholson knocked a wanna be robber onto the ground last Tuesday.
On Thursday, Nicholson was fired.
Don’t you hate it when that happens? You’re trying to do the right thing at work, following your gut and then bam! You run straight into the brick wall of some stupid corporate policy.
Or is it?
After more than two years working as a teller at the Key Bank branch in Lower Queen Anne, Nicholson knew that he should have just handed over the cash. The bank had a strict policy that instructed tellers to just show robbers the money and hand over the cash. Avoiding confrontation and saving lives is the aim.
Instead of surrendering, Nicholson threw the bag to the floor, lurched toward the robber and demanded to “see it.” On the Today show on August 5th, he clarified that he meant the weapon. Shocked, the robber raced for the door, with Nicholson in close pursuit.
Nicholson, a fit 30, chased the man for several blocks before throwing him to the ground with the help of a passer-by. Nicholson held him until the police arrived. Nicholson had practiced for this event by running after shoplifters while working at retail jobs in New York and California. He expressed confidence he could catch the person.
“It’s something I almost look forward to. It’s a thrill and I’m an adrenaline-junkie person. “It’s the pursuit.”
I’d advise Nicholson to seek other employment, such as police work, dog catching or lion taming!
As a Key Bank corporate spokesperson said in a statement to Foxnews.com, “Our policies and procedures are in the best interests of public safety and are consistent with industry standards. Money, which is insured, can be replaced. Lives cannot.”
Nicholson counters that he understands but “my instincts kicked in and I did what’s best to stop the guy. I thought if I let him go he would rob more banks and cause more problems.”
What should you do if you encounter a robber, assailant, or other evil doer at work? As I wrote in my most recent book, “We Need to Talk: Tough Conversations with Your Employee, From Performance Review to Terminations; Tackle any Topic with Sensitivity and Smarts.”, there are specific steps you should take. Follow the advise of Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb. “When confronted by a violent criminal, it is best to comply unless they feel their personal safety is in jeopardy. It is possible that taking action and confronting the criminal may lead to the injury of the victim or other bystanders.” Whitcomb urged citizens to get a description of the suspect, especially of his or her clothing: “It’s best to help the people who are on duty, to help them catch the person. There’s just so many bad people out there and there’s so many variables.”
Just days before the bank incident, a clerk at a Seattle convenience store was killed when he tried to stop an armed robbery in progress.
What do you think? Do you believe in workplace vigilantism? Would you welcome the chance to serve as a hero? Inquiring minds want t o know. Email me and I’ll post it.

By now, most of the pundits have weighed on Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested on the porch of his own home on July 16. Just in case you’ve been on vacation on a remote Atoll and have missed this debacle, while many facts are still in dispute, these are the facts that both sides agree upon:

Gates arrived home from a trip to China, had trouble getting the door of his house open and forced it. Someone called 911 to report breaking and entering. A police officer approached Gates’ home and asked him to step outside. Gates declined. The officer went into the home where Gates showed him an ID that proved he lived there. Gates asked the officer for his name and badge number and did not get them.

The blogosphere and pundits alike have had a field day over the last month with the specter of yet another supposedly straight-laced, upright, morality preaching politician brought down by infidelity. While he hasn’t resigned as of this post, he had a tough time at Monday’s press conference dodging questions about his affair with an Argentine beauty while he was trying to talk about state business.
While I could go on about how he–like other sanctimonious, bible thumping politicians- should have just “kept it in his pants” what I want to remind you about, dear reader, is the stupidity and dangers of email.
The State, a South Carolina newspaper, printed excerpts from the florid emails between the Gov. and the woman with whom he was having an affair, “Maria.” For example:
“Two, mutual feelings…You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light- but hey, that would be going into sexual details…
Sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”
What is it about email that makes supposedly smart people abandon all sense? Almost every investigation I conduct these days has the alleged harasser or discriminator leaving an incriminating email trail. These are all people who should know better: lawyers, investment bankers, IT professionals. Yet email they must, despite the fact that an email is a just a postcard on the server floor.
As I often tell my workshop participants, and as I wrote in my book Stop Pissing Me Off! What to do When the People You Work With Drive You Crazy, the e in email stands for evidence! And in the Sanford debacle, I would say that the e in email stands for embarrassing! Some examples of the stupidity I have seen:

Love her or hate her, Palin continues to fire up commentators, enrage her critics and engage her supporters. When she jumped ship and resigned as the governor of Alaska, she shocked even her former Presidential running mate John McCain, who admitted on Meet the Press this week that she hadn’t called him beforehand.

While the pundits will continue to debate whether the constant media scrutiny forced Palin out of office or whether she’s plotting her own media empire, the question I have for you is what can you learn from her departure? If your job is driving you crazy, should you stay or should you go?

After a two-week flap, David Letterman finally and directly apologized to Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughters on his program last Monday night, saying he wanted to say he was sorry “to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everyone else who was outraged by the joke.”

In case you’re like me and can’t stay up for the late show, two weeks ago, Letterman joked about Gov. Palin attending a Yankees game with her daughter. The joke, in which Letterman seemingly confused Willow, who is 14 and attended a Yankees game that week, with Bristol, who is 18 and an unwed mother, had to do with Palin’s biggest problem being keeping her daughter from being “knocked up” by Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez.

Okay, here we go again. The new rap on Sonya Sotomayer is that she is “overly aggressive,” maybe even a “bully” based on comments by anonymous lawyers on the almanac of the Federal Judiciary.
I have to admit that the whole debate makes me tired. I have constantly advised my female coaching clients that they simply do not has as much “bandwidth” as men, even in this day and age.
What I mean by that is that they are walking a tightrope. They can’t be too angry or, of course, they will be labeled with the B word. They can’t be too soft, or they won’t be tough enough. Men, of course, have the same kind of constraints in corporate America; they also have to be charming to be liked but the road they walk is simply wider.
As I wrote in my book Stop Pissing Me Off! What to do When the People You Work With Drive You Crazy, one of my clients learned the hard way that the war of the sexes still rages in the workplace. Coached by a mentor at her old law firm to be direct with support staff, she endeavored to do that in a new firm. She was brief, clear and direct. It failed miserably. Although the terms law firm and soft culture often don’t belong in the same sentence, my coaching client didn’t recognize that the new firm did, indeed, have a much softer culture. Consequently, the support staff found her approach to be nothing more than condescending and abrupt antics.
She had run smack into the old gender stereotype: men can be rewarded for hard-charging and direct, even angry behavior, but women may be penalized for the same tactics. Instead of being applauded, they’re called bitches. I had to inform my client of the sad truth that women’s styles are still examined differently. Women who fail in male-dominated workplaces leave a trail behind them: “We tried hiring a man but it didn’t work out.” It’s not fair, it’s not legal; but it does still happen.
NPL legal reporter Nina Totenberg analyzed the oral arguments of Sotomayor and found that her style was tough and blunt but no more so than other judges, especially when compared to notoriously tough judges such as Supreme Court Justice Scalia. Early in her judicial career Sotomayor was criticized as being too blunt, and her mentor Judge Guido Calabresi, former Yale Law School Dean, started keeping track, comparing the substance and tone of her questions with those of his male colleagues and his own questions.
As he told Totenberg “And I must say I found no difference at all. So I concluded all that was going on was that there were some male lawyers who couldn’t stand being questioned toughly by a woman. It was sexism in its most obvious form.”
Since I spent ten years standing in front of federal judges, I frequently joke to my speaking audiences that they can’t insult me, I’ve been insulted by professionals. (Not that they’re not professionals, it’s just not their job to insult me.) The people who are critiquing Sotomayor for behavior that most seasoned trial attorneys would find pretty typical should just get a grip!