Jim Bathurst: Coaching, Self-Awareness, and Getting Started

Published January 4, 2022 · All posts on Jan 4

Jim Bathurst: Coaching, self-awareness, and getting started

What strategies can be used to help individuals overcome personal and environmental barriers to achieve their physical and mental wellness goals?

When Jim Bathurst first began his fitness blog in college, he never imagined it would lead to a successful career as a personal trainer and coach. He shares his journey from athlete to coach, and how he approaches helping people. Jim discusses setting and achieving goals, recharging his energy, and music. He reflects on changes with Beast Skills and Nerd Fitness, and recent challenges he’s faced.

No one ever just comes up with a finished product… Just start wherever you’re at and then take that next step forward.

~ Jim Bathurst (46:25)

Jim Bathurst is an acrobat, weightlifter, personal trainer, head of Fitness at Nerd Fitness, and the creator of Beast Skills. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with the NSCA and has been coaching people for 15 years now. During that time, he received the award of Best Personal Trainer in Washington DC, as well as the award for Best CrossFit Gym while he was Director of CrossFit Foggy Bottom. Jim brings his experience in gymnastics and calisthenics to his work outs and tutorials, breaking down difficult bodyweight exercises into manageable progressions.

The conversation centers on how to foster physical and mental well-being through incremental progress and prioritization. It emphasizes the importance of identifying personal priorities to make space for health-related activities. The discussion also explores how environmental factors, such as social support and physical surroundings, can influence one’s ability to sustain a healthy lifestyle. Coaches play a pivotal role in helping clients navigate these challenges by tailoring strategies to their unique circumstances.

Another major theme is the need to celebrate small victories and recognize progress beyond conventional milestones. This mindset helps sustain motivation and builds self-awareness over time. The dialogue also touches on broader personal growth themes, like overcoming self-consciousness, embracing new challenges, and the parallels between physical training and other aspects of life, such as creativity and content creation.

Takeaways

Celebrating incremental progress — Small achievements along the way are vital for sustaining long-term motivation.

Coaching as a guide — A coach’s role involves helping clients navigate their unique challenges and environments.

Adjusting priorities — Making time for health and wellness often requires reevaluating personal and professional priorities.

Social and environmental support — The success of health goals often depends on having a supportive social environment and optimizing one’s physical surroundings.

Awareness development — Building awareness in different stages (before, during, and after actions) is key to recognizing habits and fostering positive change.

Overcoming fear of judgment — Starting new projects or fitness routines often means letting go of the fear of others’ perceptions.

Adapting to challenges — Creativity and adaptability are essential to maintain consistency in wellness practices amidst life’s uncertainties.

Resources

Nerd Fitness — Where Jim is the head of fitness.

Beast Skills — Jim’s blog and resource site focusing on breaking down complex bodyweight exercises into manageable progressions.

Anecdotes — Pink Floyd’s the Wall and the Gunslinger series.

Music — Indie Rock, the Smiths, Snail Mail, Wolf Alice, Phoebe Bridgers and the Sneaker Pimps new album.

Nerd Fitness Camps — Returning in 2022.

University of Maryland Gymnastics Club — A place mentioned in the conversation as part of Jim’s early fitness journey.

Promptness and lateness — Mike Birbiglia skit

Planning in relation to training — Happy Body program by Jerzy Gregorek

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Fear

Published January 4, 2022 · All posts on Jan 4

Don’t let the weight of fear weigh down the joy of curiosity. Fear is really false evidence appearing real.

~ Peter Guber

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Slip addresses with a “/” in them

Published January 4, 2022 · All posts on Jan 4

Sometimes some small little niggling piece-of-sand-in-my-oyster gets resolved, and all is right in the world. This is one of those cases. This is a tiny, but irrelevant if you don’t have a slipbox, little thing that was bothering me…

Crash-course/reminder:

  • Every “slip” (which for my slipbox is a 3×5 card, but one could use anything) has a single address.
  • If a slip’s address is “address31” (that is NOT actually an address) it must be unique, because I’m going to note that address on other slips, as a way of saying “see also the slip at address31”.
  • There are two competing needs: The need to be able to infinitely insert slips between existing slips, and the fact that one cannot know the structure of the final assembly of slips. (Both because the assembly is never technically finished, and because you don’t know what you’ll assemble.)
  • The solution is a hierarchic address system. The address of my first slip is, literally, “1” then “2” then “3”. When I need a slip between 2 and 3, I go “down” a level: The address “2a” is between 2 and 3. I have slips with address like 4a800 — literally the 800th slip between 4a and 4b. I also have addresses like 4c1fi.

“4c1fi” is interesting. “4” is my commonplace book. “4c” is for slipbox indices. “4c1” is for people. (There’s a 4c2 for themes, like “farming” — I just stuck my finger in there now, and was surprised to find “farming”.) But what is going on with that “fi” part?

I mentioned above that “4a800” is the 800th slip under “4a”. Does that mean “4c1fy” is the fy-th slip between “4c1” and “4c2”? Yes, sort of.

Sorry, did I lose you with “counting with letters?” On the slip addresses, I’m alternating letters and numbers as the addresses go down in layers. So in the letter-based levels of an address, I’m using: a, b, c, d, e … y, z, aa, ab, ac, ad, … fg, fh, and finally fi. This is counting in base-26, using roman letters as the glyphs. “fi” is 159 in the more common base-10. So is “4c1fi” the 159th slip between “4c1” and “4c2”? Yes, sort of. It’s actually about the 20th slip between “4c1” and “4c2”.

There’s no reason I have to use all the addresses. Sometimes I want to pack some meaning into the address itself. That’s what’s going on with the slips under “4c1”. That “fi” in the address tells me the card contains {people whose name,} (that much I know, because I know “4c1” is an index of people,) starts with an “F” and whose next vowel is an “i”. That sounds nuts, I know. Let it go for today, because I’m about to get to the point of my title about the “/” in addresses.

Suppose I want to have the address on a slip tell me something, like a date?

Slips have a date on them— the date I created the slip and put it in the box. But what if I want to see, on the slip for farming (!) a reference to another slip… and I want to know something interesting about that referenced slip? What if I wanted to put the date in the slip address? October 4, 2021, for example, could be written as “211004”. (I’ll be long dead before 991231 rolls over to 000101 in the year 2100.)

One day, I decided to keep a slip for every recorded conversation I’ve done. That’s another blog post. That happened to be slip “3”. The slips under “3”—the ones for each recording—would then be “3a”, “3b”, “3c” and so on. But I wanted to somehow put “211004” in the address. :(

That’s what the slash if for.

Farming has a reference to “3/211004b” because “3211004b” would suggest I have 3+ million top-level slips. The slash makes it clear the address is “3”, then down a level to “211004”. (Then down a level to “b”, because this was the second recording on that day.)

So, I randomly grabbed “4c2fa”, which I discovered has “farming” on it, and which mentions the {second audio recording I made on Oct 4, 2021} (I can see that from “3/211004b”. flip flip flip Ah, yes, I now remember this conversation with Kate…

Apertif: Here’s one way the slipbox grows. I was looking at the “4c2fa” card with “farming” on it, and another conversation popped into my head… with Chris Moran. There’s a slip for that recording — flip flip flip find Moran, who I can tell would be on “4c1mo” just based on his name, that mentions “3/181125a”, and I can see without even looking at that slip, that’s a recording from November 2018. And I just added “3/181125a” to the slip with “farming.”

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Music with Orlando Bishop

Published January 3, 2022 · All posts on Jan 3

How does podcasting provide creative freedom and personal fulfillment?

Music transforms podcasts into immersive experiences, creating a distinct emotional resonance.

Music completely changed my vision for the project.

~ Orlando Bishop (10:45)

The conversation explores how podcasting offers freedom from traditional creative constraints. It highlights the ability to bypass industry gatekeepers, enabling creators to connect directly with their audience. Orlando describes how podcasting serves as an avenue to express creativity and experiment with different formats and themes, including producing unique audio experiences.

The role of music in podcasting is discussed in depth, with insights into its transformative impact on storytelling and emotional connection. The conversation also touches on broader lessons about podcasting as a learning process, embracing imperfection, and aligning podcasting with broader personal or professional goals. Themes of persistence, adaptability, and audience connection are emphasized.

Takeaways

Freedom in podcasting — It allows creators to bypass gatekeepers and take direct control of content.

Experimentation with format — Podcasting supports diverse approaches to storytelling and audience engagement.

Role of music — Music enhances the emotional depth of episodes, serving as a defining feature of the podcast.

Learning through iteration — Imperfection and adaptability are integral to the creative journey.

Audience connection — Identifying and serving a specific audience creates meaningful engagement.

Alignment with personal goals — Podcasting can complement broader ambitions and professional objectives.

Creative autonomy — The medium enables creators to shape their projects authentically.

Resources

Akimbo Podcasting WorkshopA — A program that encourages creativity and skill development in podcasting.

Unstuck AF Podcast — Orlando’s podcast integrating music and personal coaching insights to inspire listeners.

Chilpreneur — by Denise Duffield-Thomas offerings business advice with a focus on balance and simplicity.

We Align Community — Orlando’s platform associated with strategies for alignment and community building.

Dinner for Two Film — A film directed by Orlando, emphasizing storytelling through music.

Orlando Bishop on LinkedIn

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Busy

Published January 3, 2022 · All posts on Jan 3

Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can’t do something, the excuse, “I am too busy,” is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don’t believe in, “too busy.” Busy is a decision. We do things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for, “not important enough.” It means you would rather be doing something else that you consider more important.

~ Debbie Millman

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Brain-slipbox alignment

Published January 3, 2022 · All posts on Jan 3

A faithful reader hit reply recently and asked…

How do you get your brain to be consistent with your slipbox? I’m thinking it would be an excellent thing to do/have, but I also know that if I was filing thoughts under a tab where I thought it should go, there’s a good chance that when I look for it later, a different tab is where I’m going to think it should be.

The short answer is: I don’t get them consistent; I don’t actually want them to be consistent. That’s not what the slipbox is for.

And then a two-part longer answer:

First: It is vastly better than my brain at keeping track of things. For example, if I have a name, I can find entry points into the slipbox by using the index of people. That’s at “4c1”. “4” is the common place book. “4c” is slipbox indices. “4c1” is for people. It’s a visually easy to spot section of the cards though. I use 3×5 tabbed dividers to find the main letters. Grabbing a random card— “4c1lo” (that’s four-C-one-L-O) has people whose last name starts with “L” then first vowel of “O”. The card has “London, John”, “London, Jack”, “Lombardi, Vince”, “Loomis, Carol”. In this case names that actually start “LO…” but that is not usually the situation. Next to “Low, Steven” is a reference “3/211027a”  … and I know what the “3” section of the slipbox is: recorded conversations. So that’s a conversation I had with the person on 21-10-07. To summarize: Given any name, I can find them in the slipbox; or I can tell they’re not in the slipbox. In other situations, I can go into the box: “what were my notes on that book?” I can find books (digital, physical, essays and papers too) are in the “2” section of the slipbox.

Second: The slipbox is not meant ONLY to be a card catalog system. It’s not ONLY a giant index of things. It’s primary goal is to have a conversation with the entire collection [whatever I’ve put in the slipbox so far] of my thinking. It’s not a database of bits of information (“Harrisburd is the capital of Pennsylvania”) but rather a database of thoughts about things.

I admit it’s all very obtuse. After a year of fiddling with it, I’m convinced that it’s adding value to my life, but I still find it very hard to explain. One parting thought from a book about note taking is that one needs a context and system within which to think. Not a strict plan for how to think. The context and the system need to be as UNstructured as possible to enable the flexible thinking.

Finally, there’s a tag for all the slipbox posts, that might yield additional breadcrumbs if you flip through them, https://constantine.name/tag/slipbox/

Hope that helps :)

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Reality

Published January 2, 2022 · All posts on Jan 2

[…] enter the real world as soon as you can. […] I mean for you to get off of social media, to get out of the big cities, and to re-connect with what’s real: Nature, your soul, your inner child. Respect yourself. Most of the world is asleep today, playing a small role in a gigantic illusion. You don’t have to be. You can choose a different life. It’s all within. You will know the answer when you take the time to find yourself and trust yourself.

~ Jérôme Jarre

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2022’s touch-phrase shall be…

Published January 2, 2022 · All posts on Jan 2

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I hope these emails aren’t piling up in your inbox. I know of at least one reader who really enjoys them. They enjoy them so much, they keep saving them for a better time to read them, and they now have a pile. That’s not what I meant to do to you; I’m so sorry!

Back on 3/3/2021, I changed this blog from going out as a daily email, to be a weekly email. One of the reasons was that I didn’t want my email piling up in your inbox. I don’t mean “waaaaaaaaa, you’re not reading!” I mean that I don’t want to be making your life worse. It doesn’t actually affect me whether you read in a timely fashion, read later, or not at all. But puh-LEASE think about this:

If you enjoy these emails so much, don’t you deserve to have a specific time that you can look forward to? Your favorite reading nook, a cup of tea (or rum or whatever)… you know: Make a little ritual out of it. If that ritual turns out to make your life better, then you can always remove my silly missives and slot in something actually worth reading. I digress.

Choose wisely.

Those of you who are regular readers will be aware that I’ve been thinkering on the touch-phrase for 2022. Coming out of the fourth turn, it looked briefly as if, Urgency?! might pull ahead in the final stretch to win by a, “U”. But it wasn’t to be; Choose Wisely was hard at it the whole way down the back stretch and simply had too demanding a lead for Urgency?! to overcome. And why did this turn into a horse race metaphor? They do sound like the name of race horses though. Choose Wisely takes up the mantel from a long lineage of winners: “No.” “Simplify” “Hell Yes! or no.” and “Festina Lente” (which is not an assessment of pasta’s done-ness) to name a few.

Hopefully—lest my life have no meaning—I’ve made you laugh, or think twice, in the past year. Seriously though, please consider hitting one of those supporter links at the tippy top. Every dollar really does matter and move me towards making a living doing things I enjoy.

In other news, I’ve hit the “Drop cap” button on that paragraph back there a ways. Why? No reason. Just always wanted to use it, just to see what it looks like in the emails.

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Failure

Published January 1, 2022 · All posts on Jan 1

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.

~ James Cameron

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Simplify

Published January 1, 2022 · All posts on Jan 1

Never use a long word where a diminutive one would suffice. When you want to keep a story moving don’t spend a lot of time going on circuitous side trips when you could instead proceed directly to the most interesting, active parts. Like that time I was in the Antarctic with Ernie and we had to abandon the Endurance to the ice, it’s important to use good visuals to make your point in as few word as possible. Also, there are clear rules for writing, such as: One should only write authoritatively about that which one actually knows. Other rules include: Don’t overuse colons; It’s important to know how to use a semi-colon.

Not sure how I got on that train of thought. It simply struck me to try writing a paragraph which was maximally incorrect. I should probably exercise more restraint. But what started this post— What prompted my title selection was:

I’ve decided to stop tracking my waist measurement. It simplifies my crazy list of things I try to do every day, sure. It also eliminates the number of times I go to weigh/measure and have to double-back for reading glasses to see the tailor’s tape. I had started tracking it so that I could calculate my waist to weight ratio. After a few years I’ve learned that the ratio is telling. Not in a depressing way, but it’s a very interesting number—I can tell my level of fitness, how I’ll feel if I try to do something (say, go run, or boulder,) and it’s a great indicator. But having the data didn’t enable to do anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So, lest I go ever onward adding processes and things and systems and numbers— ahem. Dropped it.

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Caution: Tulpa

Published December 31, 2021 · All posts on Dec 31

I’ve recently made a startling discovery: Maybe there really is a tulpa in my head.

First, I’ve said for many years that my brain is broken. (Yes, I am aware I have terrible self-talk.) Here’s why I call it broken: I am literally unable to NOT see problems. I notice an endless onslaught of things that, in my opinion, could be improved. I don’t mean, “that sucks, I wish it could be better.” No, I mean, “that sucks and it’s obvious this way would be better and if you’d just let me get started . . . ” Adderall might help, I suppose.

Everyone loves that I get stuff done, and try to make things better. But unless you have this same problem, I’d imagine it’s hard to understand how this is debilitating. I am aware that this is recursive—I see my own brain as a broken process that I feel I should repair. All I can say is that you should be happy, and thank your fave diety if that’s your thing, that you don’t understand. Because to understand is to have the problem, and you do. not. want. this. problem.

Second, I’ve also said for many years that, “the remainder cannot go into the computer.” I’m referring to a endless source of struggle in programming and systems administration; Computers are exact, and the real world—with its real people, real problems, and things which really are subjective shades of gray—is not. So programmers and systems administrators factor, in the mathematical sense of finding factors which when multiplied give you the original, reality into the computers. And when factoring reality, there is always a remainder. That remainder shows up when you find your software does something weird. That could be a mistake, but I tell you from experience, it is more often some edge case. Some people had to make choices when they factored.

The result of that second point is that I’ve spent the majority of my life factoring, (and “normalizing” for your math geeks who know about vector spaces,) problems into computers. And then trying to live with the remainders that didn’t go into the computer. The remainders are all in my head. Or on post-it notes on my wall, (back in the day.) Or the remainder is some scheduled item reminding me to check the Foobazzle process to ensure the comboflux has not gone frobnitz. To do that I had to intentionally be pragmatic and logical. And the really scary part is I also learned that the best way to do all of that was to talk to myself—sometimes literally, bat-shit crazy, out loud, but usually very loudly inside my own mind—to discover the smallest, least-worst, remainder that I could manage to live with.

What if those two things were sufficient to create a Tulpa. (I am serious.)

I think there’s a Tulpa in here! (My title is the sign on the front gate.) It is absolutely pragmatic. It knows an alarming amount of detail about things I’ve built, (or maintained, or fixed.) It is cold and calculating. It is terrified that it will forget about one of those details, 2347 will happen, and everyone will run out of ammunition defending their canned goods from the roaming bands of marauders. I definitely don’t “have” the Tulpa. It’s more like discovering there’s an extra person living in your house. Although, I don’t hold hope of banishing this Tulpa, Yoda does make a good point if I’m going to try. So, I should definitely give it a name.

Maybe, Sark?

That is an intriguing idea indeed! Sark, what do you think?

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Slips

Published December 30, 2021 · All posts on Dec 30

I was leisurely tinkering my way through my morning, and my mind kicked out a few ideas. It always does that. Yes, I talk about my mind in the third person, because sometimes I think I have a Tulpa.

The first idea that popped up was about sending a message to someone to wish them a Happy New Year. At the time, I had not yet awakened the sleeping dragon—my computer. (I could say: My personal Eye of Sauron was still closed.) Things change for me once I awaken the dragon each day. But I have this idea to send a message, and it’s important, but I don’t dare awaken the dragon to ask if I can just send this one quick message. I’ll look up again and it’ll be 4 in the afternoon. Instead, I grabbed one of my precious slips and jotted a note.

Holding the slip I realized this was brilliant. I recently bought a brick of 1,000 3×5 cards because the slipbox is voracious. I have plenty of these little slips. So why hadn’t I done this for the past year that I’ve been keeping a slipbox? Why did it happen for the first time today? It happened because I used to see the slips as precious; They were nice, heavy, beautiful 3×5 cards that sit close at hand and are supposedly waiting to become immortal slips in the slipbox. Just the other day, I used the last one of my original stash, and I broke open that new brick… and realized I’d bought cheap-ass crappy Amazon knock-off 3×5 cards. (I had only spent $13 for 1,000 so I wasn’t too upset.) When that idea to send a message popped into my brain, I thought: “well, I have 1,000 crappy slips to use up . . .” and this little queue of individual ideas quickly appeared on my desk.

No, the coffee mug does not currently contain rum.

The lesson I re-learned this morning is that even a slight change of context can have an outsized affect on something. (In this case, my “precious” slips [you’re hearing Gollum aren’t you?] had become “crappy” slips.)

Setting aside what you think of my specific anecdote here, where might you make a small change and discover some surprising benefit?

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Inner knowledge

Published December 29, 2021 · All posts on Dec 29

Make yourself proud. I think we spend too much of our time trying to please everyone. And we forget that it’s all already within. Your instinct, your inner child, your soul, all of those know what’s good for you and the world. The public opinion of your friends and strangers online, not so much.

~ Jérôme Jarre

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Connection

Published December 28, 2021 · All posts on Dec 28

After a long time, I realized that people weren’t sitting out there waiting to cruelly judge me. They also weren’t sitting out there waiting to hear me expound on my incredible expertise. What they wanted more than anything else was a sense of connection, and I could provide that by being genuine and present. I realized that what I also wanted was connection, and I didn’t need to be a perfect speaker for that to happen.

~ Sharon Salzberg

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Get off my star map

Published December 28, 2021 · All posts on Dec 28

The plaza’s terrazzo floor is actually a celestial map that marks the time of the dam’s creation based on the 25,772-year axial precession of the earth.

~ Alexander Rose from, The 26,000-Year Astronomical Monument Hidden in Plain Sight

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These weren’t on my mind when we planned our visit, but it was a rare moment of delightful recognition when I spotted them. So often I find interesting places, and then never get there.

And sometimes I go places specifically after finding them on the Internet.

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