All in Productivity

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 17: David Siu - Food for Thought 2021

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 17: David Siu - Food for Thought 2021

Fabian
Life, Happiness, Productivity

Before I started podcasting and Food for Thought became a regular book review segment in the shadowboxing solo podcasts, it was the title of an annual blog post introducing my top five books I read in the outgoing year.

I just published this year’s Food for Thought blog; it is the seventh consecutive year. But since 2021 was the year of the Life-Sparring podcast, it felt unavoidable not to record a Food for Thought Podcast special.

To make the best of the audio/video format and to spice things a bit up, I invited a guest for this round, Hong Kong-based executive coach and friend of the show, David Siu. Together we discuss each of our top three books of the year and more generally about reading and life.

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 9: Fabian - Shadowboxing April 2021 - The Ring

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 9: Fabian - Shadowboxing April 2021 - The Ring

Fabian
Life, Health, Career, Productivity

Shadowboxing rounds are solo episodes, where I, Life-Sparring host Fabian Gruber share “what’s On and Poppin” in my life, what current books provide “Food for Thought,” and what else is going on. No interviews, just a bit of solo rambling and occasionally some bad singing.

In this round of Life-Sparring Shadowboxing: truly awful singing and an attempt to explain it, a first review of the Oura Ring health monitor and reviews of Laura Huang’s book “Edge” and the late Clayton M. Christensen’s book “Competing Against Luck.”

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 8: Simon Klaiber - Are You OKR?

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 8: Simon Klaiber - Are You OKR?

Fabian
Interview, Career, Productivity, Life

OKRs, Objectives and Key Results - After the Life-Sparring Podcast has been heavy on health and fitness topics recently, it is time for an exciting business and personal productivity round.

Our guest, Simon Klaiber, is not just a successful business agility consultant and coach from Frankfurt, Germany; he also runs two Podcasts (in German) on business and personal agility. In episode 21 of his Personal Agility Podcast, Simon shared his experience using OKRs for personal goal setting.

Introduced initially at Intel in the late 1970s, early 1980s by then legendary CEO Andy Grove, OKRs were later popularized by Intel staffer turned private equity investor John Doerr. Doerr brought OKRs to the young team at Google and several other Silicon Valley start-ups, from where the concept diffused into the broader tech industry.

Today OKRs are a widely used method to set goals for an organization and create alignment, transparency, and accountability across different corporate levels.

Together Simon and Fabian explore the advantages and pitfalls of OKRs and how a tool originally designed for big corporations can be helpful to achieve your personal goals.

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 5: Fabian - Shadowboxing February 2021

Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 5: Fabian - Shadowboxing February 2021

Fabian
Life, Productivity

Shadowboxing rounds are solo episodes, where Life-Sparring host Fabian Gruber shares “What’s On and Poppin” in his life, what current books provide “Food for Thought” and what else is going on. No interviews, just a bit of solo rambling.

The winter in Hong Kong ended rather abruptly and muggy spring weather made it rather unlikely that Fabian still will try to improve on his rater embarrassing record for the Translantau 50k trail race. At least gyms are back open in Hong Kong and the first personal training sessions take their toll.

There is not much that’s “On and Poppin’” in February, at least not in terms of new tools and gadgets. Time to appreciate some old favorites and their new use cases. Food for Thought is all gloom and doom this time, with Dan Carlin’s “The End is Always Near”. This and a bit more in a short and sweet round of Life-Sparring.