Review of Richard Branson's

"Losing my virginity"

Losing my virginity is one of the books which crops up in almost every reading list on the web for someone who is interested in leadership, entrepreneurship, business or a mixture of these topics. So this book went onto my reading list as besides the biographies of Steve Jobs, Ernest Shackleton, Margaret Thatcher, Willi Brandt, Helmut Kohl, Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln. So far it has been the most entertaining read of all of these.

Richard Branson is the founder of the Virgin Group who is majorly known for their airlines, trains and activities in the music business mainly in the 70's and 80's. Furthermore he is an adventurer who crossed the Atlantic at record speed in a boat and won several hot balloon challenges like crossing the Atlantic and the Pacific. Currently the Virgin Group is a conglomerate of roughly 400 companies.

In the edition of the autobiography which I own Branson covers the years from 1950 to 2007. He gives insight on how he built his newspaper "Student", for which he amongst others interviewed Mick Jagger, and moved on to bigger ventures like his record company or airline operations. The book starts with the near death experience of one of his balloon adventures and return to this point in time later in the book. In the end Branson describes his meetings with Mandela and other leading personalities to build a better future for mankind. Furthermore there is insight given in his marriages and approaches to bringing up children. Failures are not spared and analyzed. 

The style of the book is easy accessible and very likeable which is known to be one of Branson's major strengths in business. It covers, sex, drugs, rock & roll, festivals, hippies, how to run an airline, trains, how to fight dirty corporate tricks and much more.

This was a great and easy read with common sense approaches to business. The major messages to take away from Branson are "You have to try everything at least once" and "Give it all you got". Business is about people and with all the mistakes he did he seems not to be shy to talk about them. Make a plan and execute it. Dare to read this book.

Book Review: Running

Snooker Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan about his life, his passions & self control

 Injury free Training:

Can I hurt myself running?

Yes you can hurt yourself running so be smart about training:

There is a multitude of injuries you can obtain on the journey to improve your run time and fitness level. To avoid those you have to be aware of how much you can take and where your limits are. This is highly depending on your age, fitness level and familiarity with the runs you do.

Your risk of injury is a function of how fast you run combined with how long you run:

I am a friend of rules of thumb which are easy to remember. Especially for new athletes who want to run faster. The longer you run, the longer you are exposed to a risk of injury due to fatigue. Most of these injuries are minor injuries which won't stop you from training, but make you less efficient in training. The faster you run, the more likely it is that you will severely injure yourself in a manner which will stop you from training. The combination of running faster than you should for a long time rapidly increases the risk of injury.

At the Fingal 10k in Dublin on the 20th of July i ran a pr 10k of 39:48:

The 10k run was part of my current preparation to the Frankfurt Marathon on the 26th of October 2014. I am running for a good one and a half years and when i got the result i couldn't believe that i made it to the crowd who is capable of running 10k in under 40 minutes.

I got a feeling that i was onto something when i started slightly behind the top runners and was still going strong with barely anyone overtaking me. I passed the club runners who I admired when I ran the Finglas 10k last year. As i passed one of the senior runners who had been pointed out by the commentator at the beginning of the race I felt proud.

The things i did differently from the year before which definitely helped me run faster:

• Made use of the bag tag to leave my bag comfortably behind
• Arrived one and a half hours early, checked out the area and did a proper warm up
  
• Left my I phone at home. The chip already measures your time 

Book review: On the map

To be on the map or off the map gets more important and easy in the 21st century through Google, facebook, youtube and Linkedin. But how did you get on or off the map in the past?

Did you ever stroll through the streets of your hometown and marveled who came up with these street names? Did you ever ask yourself why America is called America? Did you ever wonder on your way to work who came up with the design for the map pinned to the ceiling of the carriage ? Simon Garfield goes to the bottom of these questions and beyond in his book "On the map: Why the world looks the way it does".

Review of "I never knew that about Ireland" 

The White House, symbol of American political authority was invented

 here. Coca Cola launched its success story from this very country. The ideas for the Sydney opera house, Louvre Pyramid and one of the longest buildings in the world, the Kasai International Airport Terminal, sprung from the mind of the children of this very place. If you expected this place to be the U.S.A., France, Germany or China stereotypes fooled you. This all comes from Hibernia, Ireland.

Book review: A short history of the Irish Revolution

Your jump start to irish history:"A short history of the Irish Revolution" by Richard Killeen.

If you are amongst the visitors/citizens of Ireland who ask themselves why Hibernia is seprated and how this came to pass Richard Killeen's 152 page short overview is just right for you.

Book review: 23 Things they don't tell you about capitalism

Is looking at the financial crisis with a smile and learning from it possible? Ha-Joon Chang proves it to be so in his book “23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism”

If you are in desperate need for arguments in discussions about capitalism and make your “I know it all and even better friends” go pale from your cutting edge analysis with a smirk, “23 Things they don’t tell you about Capitalism” might be the right read for you.

How to run a faster marathon? Run on your holidays

First you think it is hard, but then you enjoy it!

I went to a beautiful holiday together with my girldfriend in July 2014 organised by Riviera around the Bay of Naples. We opted for the all inclusive no brainer: Everything is done for you kind of vacation as we made the experience that this leads to less complications. The kids were off to the scouts to Lisbon and we had a great time.

Book Review: Think and Grow rich

What would you think if there was a formula to become rich? What if this formula was pretty simple but there just has to be someone to point it out to you? Napoleon Hill will change the way how you think about yourself and your life plans by using real life examples. This book will tell you how to grow rich.