Friday Thoughts 114
Greetings! Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share what’s been on my mind this week. Let’s get into it.
ISO: A NEW COACH
We’re searching for someone to join our small, established coaching team. This role is ideal for someone who loves coaching people, values long-term development over quick fixes, and wants meaningful responsibility in a semi-private training environment.
This is a salaried position with consistent hours, autonomy, opportunities for private training income, and room to grow. If you—or someone you know—might be a good fit, reach out to me directly at justin@gainsc.com.
WALK & COFFEE
Dress warm tomorrow. It’s going to be a chilly morning for our first GAIN Group Walk, followed by a catered coffee hangout at Brass Tacks Photography Studio.
The original plan was a ~2-mile, 45-minute walk. Given the weather—and the fact that many of us will have little ones tagging along—we’re going to shorten the walk to about 20 minutes.
All the details are below, and you can still sign up HERE if you need to.
I went back and forth on whether to cancel or postpone the event, but I kept coming back to this: it’s part of the Daily Walking Challenge. Many people have been getting out there every day all month, and this is a chance to do it together and make it feel a little easier—even if it’s going to be in the single digits.
JAMES CLEAR’S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
I hate almost all marketing emails. I unsubscribe, mute, and block whatever I have to just to keep my inbox under control.
For some reason, though, I’ve never unsubscribed from the author of Atomic Habits, James Clear. Most weeks I skim through and end up reading a quote or idea that actually makes me stop and think.
This week’s newsletter focused on finite things in life, and it immediately reminded me of Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. Carse describes two types of games:
Finite games are played to win within fixed rules—think sports or business.
Infinite games are played to continue the play itself, with evolving rules and boundaries—things like culture, relationships, and life.
The goal of an infinite game isn’t winning. It’s staying in the game.
Here’s the quote from James Clear that stuck with me this week:
GARMIN BY THE NUMBERS 2025
I saw that Garmin release a bunch of data about the users of their watches. Stuff like average run duration (30 minutes), most growth in an activity in the past year: strength training and more. Here are a few screenshots of the data.
As for the strength training: I know both me and Hannah started logging “strength training” on our Garmin this year. We’re both long time users, and I never even once consider using the strength mode because honestly, what is it going to even tell me? I don’t want to tinker around with muscles and body parts and sets and reps.
What changed for me over the summer was trying to tally my total hours spent training in a week. In order to do that, I started making sure to log all my gym sessions with either Strength or Cardio, purely to get the elapsed time. This was helpful, and I also noticed that the Garmin Algo liked it, and my training would be more productive.
That’s a wrap, see you in the gym!
—Justin Miner