Ruben Crawford

29/06/2022

With LXBlend I've done my best lately to help people from different countries come together.

Creating learning content for the personnel in refugee facilities, I appreciate the growth that's created when cultural differences are bridged, blended, in and used in synergy.

Funny how this mantra of blending cultures got all the more current with the birth of my daughter.

My fiancée has two nationalities, Irish and Rwandan. I have three, German, Israeli and English.

I work with an amazing team of people from India, Jordan and Italy.
We live and work in 4 different countries. Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

National borders have lost their impact on our way of life a long time ago. Having different nationalities is a unique thing that should be celebrated. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the same way, as we found out, when trying to figure out a name and passport for our daughter.

One country doesn't allow her first name, the other one doesn't allow a combined second name. The third one doesn't hand out a passport if the other countries' conditions aren't met.

Not getting recognition for your identity is not OK. And if your identity is more complex it shouldn't make it more difficult to get it acknowledged.

26/06/2022

23/09/2021

Some quick tips to land a good pitch...Enjoy!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/10/22/expert-tips-for-a-successful-pitch-from-14-executive-coaches/?sh=46079a8822bc

“We need to see trends towards transparency. When we’re having a crisis, that’s when corporate interests take advantage and push their agenda the hardest.”

03/03/2021

Fitness - an end in itself or a means to an end?

A solid fitness foundation has the potential to empower you so much. Not only does it strengthen your health and longevity, but it also gives you a more positive outlook on life. Having control over your body gives you the self-efficacy to achieve anything that you set your mind to.
But still, so many times fitness is seen as an independent fraction in life that has to be taken care of, besides work and family. Some duty on the sideline, so the looks don’t get out of control. Oftentimes, the central conscious motivation is the wish to feel ok with one’s own physical appearance.

If you catch yourself thinking, ‘That’s me’ then it’s really no wonder that you’re not taking your fitness to the next level, yet.

What I see people forget over and over again is what my childhood hero Georges St-Pierre once said: If you look good you feel good. And if you feel good you do good.
Focusing on the endless opportunities a peak fitness can open up in your life is a far stronger motivation than being worried about containing the worst.

23/02/2021

Don't be afraid to be irrational!

We all know the feeling - Some interesting opportunities have opened up - leading to a fork in the road. When I decided to move beyond the sphere of sports coaching into a new realm, working with leaders on innovative digital projects, some major decisions had to be made.

In fighting, I always appreciated having a strong intuition. When you get stuck in a bad situation you have to make a quick decision in split seconds - no time for extensive risk-reward calculations.
To understand how to use this tool in my new business-related setting, I had to fundamentally question the idea of rational decision-making.

Before people like Daniel Kahneman showed the world how our innate biases shape our worldview, it was a widespread misconception that people make economic decisions solely based on rational cost calculations.
However, the fact that a psychologist wins the Nobel prize in the foreign field of economics should tell us something about our tendency to neglect our own emotions.

If you wouldn’t have a certain emotion for each argument on both sides of a decision, how could you ever rate which one weighs heavier? And when there is always a subjective valence that decides for one path vs the other, how can decisions ever be truly rational?
We have these emotional drivers for a good reason: They help us make quick decisions, instead of just piling up two mountains of arguments on each side, without ever coming to a conclusion.
I think we've come to look at irrationality in a clinical way, when oftentimes it is the foundation for the decisions we end up being the proudest of.

The first step to curate your intuition is to identify the moments in your life when your intuition really paid off. What was the common theme?

-making

01/02/2021

>Living on the edge...of boredom<

Recent times make it hard to remember what life is all about. Goal setting has forever changed. No one knows what this year will bring and normality is now a distant memory.

In my old life as a fighter, I knew how beautiful the feeling is to test your limits. To constantly seek that next level and have a clearly structured challenge right in front of me.

But business life is different. And in recent times it’s even harder to find a way to test yourself. At least, when you went into a meeting room to present your ideas, you got that same feeling of an entrance into an arena - if not to fight against someone, at least to fight for your vision.

But nowadays things feel different. The obligatory look at the google calendar, 5 minutes in advance of a zoom meeting doesn’t come close to the excitement, walking into a real-life situation.

But.

Being in the home office doesn’t mean you have to lock yourself into your 4 walls all day. The possibilities are endless - climbing, running, swimming, meditating or whatever you always wanted to try. In a few months, when you’re back in the commuting rat race, you're going to wish yourself back into these weird times.

When you had all the time in the world to test out something bold and new...

20/01/2021

** F**K The Cold And Do It Anyway ** - 3 health & fitness boosting secrets about the cold and why it is your wisest teacher.
When I look back at my moods and the seasons it’s pretty clear that I was always letting myself go pretty hard when the winter set in. Some call it winter blues, for me it always felt more like a full on hibernation.

The cold often seemed to make it impossible for me to get off the couch and into the gym.
And now that gyms are closed during the recent lockdown, things are even tougher. An ice-cold, wet, and dark morning spent training outside can seem uninviting to say the least.
But somehow, despite all odds, I find myself to be much more motivated than usual this winter.

How come?

I embraced some age-old wisdoms about the cold and what it does to your body.

1. The cold forces you to breathe deeper.
Meaning you set off more endorphins, use up more calories and generally makes you get in a lot more healthy oxygen - a natural reflex to heat yourself up.

2.The cold puts you into a ‘survival state’.
Training at 0 degrees celsius in a t-shirt might sound crazy to some, but only if you haven’t tried it out yet. The superficial stresses of your everyday life disappear behind the more urgent need to heat up your body. Your brain shuts off negative circular thoughts and is only busy with the moment. This is meditation at it’s finest.

3. Exposing yourself to the cold makes you comfortable in being uncomfortable
Of course, a warm sunny beach is nice. But what’s also nice is to posture up, when others shiver. And to know that whatever life throws at you, you can withstand anything.
The best moment to start getting into the cold was yesterday, the best is now.

06/01/2021

Where does the truth lie? As the history books are being rewritten in times of crisis, it seems to have become increasingly difficult to make sense of how this one will turn out.

We have the natural tendency to transfer our current knowledge on how we view the past. Rolf Dobelli calls it the 'hindsight bias', meaning that it is a nice feeling to be thinking “I told you so” when looking at past events, even though at the time you were probably roaming around in the dark just as everyone else.

It gives the perception of simplicity within complexity. It fulfills the need to make sense of this crazy world.

Now, looking back at Europe’s fluctuating restriction measures, I caught myself thinking: “I told you so”. You should have stuck to one type of measure and showed some consistency in your approach.
Of course, waves would go up and down. But I don’t want my government to act like a beginner stock trader, bouncing from one extreme to the other. In the Irish case, opening everything up on Christmas and closing down on a tight movement radius once the tide turned.

But I guess hindsight is easier than foresight.

So what is the takeaway? Can our mistakes teach us something for the future, or have I fallen victim to the hindsight bias, as things are just too unforeseeable?

15/12/2020

Outsourcing - Dos and Don'ts

When leading a business it is impossible to do everything yourself. That's why outsourcing is one of a leader's most powerful weapons. Understanding where to find the right talent, what tasks to pass on, and how to inspire the desired outcomes is the ABC of leadership.

This mentality can quickly lead to the instinct that nearly everything should be outsourced. However, in my experience there are certain activities that should never be given out of hand:

Sharpening your skillset:
When outsourcing many tasks, your own capacities can quickly fall out of sight. But if you are inspired and lacking energy, you'll only inspire uninspired work.

Putting together the puzzle pieces:
Outsourcing gets rid of the necessity of having to paint the pieces yourself. However, you'll be the one putting them together to create the whole picture.

Pushing your purpose forwards:
Understanding outsourcing in its essence means to use freed up time to put towards your business' mission, vision and values.

03/11/2020

The crisis forces many of us to make quick decisions. In the latest Forbes Coaches Council post you can read my advice on how to thrive under such pressure.

While business leaders must seek ways to limit potential damage to their organization when a crisis hits, certain aspects of a company should never be changed in response. Here, Forbes Coaches Council members discuss areas where hasty decisions and crisis-driven changes could do more harm than good.