I usually train on my own, partly because of convenience and party because I yearn for “alone” time. I do however appreciate the value of training with others: there are social benefits of course, but also performance-related benefits. As this study shows, the presence of “competitors” during a run will induce faster overall times for all parties involved. This is not surprising: whether in the gym, the running track or the pool, having training partners will get you out of your comfort zone and help you break through to new levels of performance.

Last week I took a few people on a “guided grocery shopping” tour during which I highlighted misconceptions regarding healthy food and other relevant matters. When we came across the “organic” juice aisle, someone from the group indicated their love of a certain brand of organic cranberry juice, to which I cringed: I’m well aware of the health benefits, I just can’t get myself to like the taste! Maybe I should, because this new study published in The Journal of Nutrition clearly indicates that a daily glass of cranberry juice has significant positive benefits on a number of major cardiovascular risk factors, including blood pressure, triglycerides, insulin resistance, and hs-CRP. Of course I do have some reservations: the benefits appear to materialize when you drink the juice daily (i.e. no long-term sustainable effects). This means that if any of those risk factors flag red on your blood test, cranberry juice will only help in the short-term, but you still need to make lifestyle adjustments to benefit from long-term improvements.

There is nothing more satisfying than becoming successful as an entrepreneur: reaching that level means you’ve “created something valuable from nothing”, created jobs, opportunities, wealth and much more. But it’s an exhausting career choice, and most entrepreneurs are extremely passionate and are known for working night and day to make their dream a reality: this means that “burnout” is more prevalent in the entrepreneurial community than any other profession, especially since most entrepreneurs, while amazingly creative, do not come from a project management or corporate background, and as such struggle to “manage” their business, especially as it relates to prioritizing, time management, and work/life balance. I came across this article which articulates the 5 most common mistakes which lead to burnout and proposes some ideas on how to avoid them. Most of it rings true and I do see those mistakes in almost every young entrepreneur I mentor.

4 years ago I was the co-founder of an entrepreneurial venture in Dubai, focused on the security technology industry. We failed and had to eventually shut the company down. We had the right product, business plan, funding plan and even spent considerable time to find the right CEO to lead the company, poaching him from a global security tech company. At the same time, we had also invested in a minority stake in a US-based tech start-up with unique security technology innovative products: they also struggled for many years to make the company profitable, only managing to turn things around earlier this year. So what went wrong? It was obvious from early on that we had a “revenues” problem: we just couldn’t generate the sales figures we needed to sustain and grow the business (and the US company was facing similar issues). Over time, it became apparent to us with our local venture (and the board of the US company in theirs) that we just didn’t have the right sales people: no matter how good of a product & strategy you have, if you don’t have the right salesforce you will never be able to get your company off the ground, let alone thrive. This article from Entrepreneur magazine provides interesting insight into finding the right sales person for a start-up, and most of it rings true (too late for us, so avoid this mistake early on).

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in children has exploded (especially in the US) over the past 3 decades. Countless studies have looked at possible causes, and evidence points towards certain plastics, environmental pollutants, processed foods, baby formulas (yes!), sugar, gluten, and others. Yet another study was just published revealing an association between a commonly used household pesticide and the incidence of ADHD in children (especially young boys). What’s even more alarming is that this particular pesticide (Pyrethroid) is generally considered “safer” than most other pesticides, and its use is widespread and growing for home and public pest control, as well as in agriculture.

In one of last week’s digests I talked about a study which demonstrated that keeping your core temperature low is key to athletic performance in hot/humid conditions. I also talked about how the best way to keep your core temperature down is to cool your body “from the inside out” by drinking ice-cold water prior to and during training / racing. This study shows that there is an even better way: adding menthol to your ice-cold water seems to provide significant performance improvements for brick sessions in hot/humid conditions. Yes, part of the effect seems to be psychological, but even some physiological markers showed improvement. I’m going to give this a try!

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