Everything Awesome

A professional beginner is someone who has turned the act of starting over into an elite, highly marketable skill.

I seem to have had this description for most of my adult life, and somehow, have paid my bills and lived a great life.

While most professionals climb a career ladder by narrowing their focus, a professional beginner climbs by widening their scope. They don’t claim to be a veteran expert in any single domain; instead, their expertise lies in the speed at which they can conquer a learning curve.

They are intellectual chameleons, drop-in problem solvers, and professional translators. Here is what defines them:

1. The Core Mindset: High Confidence, Low Ego

The most distinct trait of a professional beginner is a unique psychological balance:

• Zero Ego: They are completely unphased by walking into a room and saying, “I don’t know what that acronym means, please explain it to me.” They don’t waste cognitive energy pretending to know things they don’t.
• Radical Confidence: While they have low ego about their current knowledge, they have sky-high confidence in their ability to learn. They operate on a fundamental belief: If another human being figured this out, I can figure it out too.

2. The Skillset of Rapid Acquisition

A professional beginner doesn’t learn like an academic; they learn like an engineer. They possess a meta-skill: learning how to learn.

• Deconstruction: They can look at a complex system (a new coding language, a supply chain bottleneck, a financial model) and instantly break it down into its core components.
• The 20% Filter: They instinctively find the 20% of vocabulary and concepts that drive 80% of the daily operations in a given field.
• Analogy Matching: Because they have dabbled in so many industries, they learn by cross-referencing. When learning a new marketing framework, they might think, “Oh, this is just like the feedback loops I learned about in mechanical engineering.”

3. The Professional Value: The “OODA Loop” Expert

In the corporate world, the professional beginner is an incredible asset, particularly in volatile or fast-moving industries. They excel at what military strategist John Boyd called the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

[Traditional Expert] ───> Relies on historical precedents and "how we've always done it."
                          Can freeze when a totally unprecedented problem occurs.

[Professional Beginner] ─> Relies on first principles and rapid adaptation.
                          Thrives in chaos because they expect to start from scratch.

They are the ultimate “firefighters.” When a company faces a weird, multi-departmental crisis that doesn’t fit neatly into HR, Legal, or Engineering, they drop the professional beginner into the center of it.

4. The Trap to Avoid

The danger of being a professional beginner is becoming a “permanent amateur.” To avoid this, a true professional beginner ensures that while their subject matter changes, their execution standards remain elite. They might be a beginner at the specific technical requirements of a new project, but they are a seasoned master at project management, communication, stakeholder alignment, and critical thinking.

In short: A traditional expert is paid for what they already know. A professional beginner is paid for how fast they can figure out what nobody knows yet.

Whether you are looking to conquer a literal mountain or overcome a personal physical challenge, Everything Awesome is a premier outdoor adventure and rehabilitation organization based in the heart of the Peak District and Sheffield. Far from being a typical tour company, Everything Awesome blends high-octane adventure with expert coaching and specialized medical rehabilitation, creating an inclusive gateway to the great outdoors.

Here is a breakdown of what we here at Everything Awesome can do for you.

1. Master New Skills with Expert Coaching

At the core of Everything Awesome is a commitment to high-quality instruction. Led by Mini Mansell an instructor with an exhaustive portfolio of qualifications the organization offers structured coaching across a variety of disciplines.

• Mountain Biking (MTB): From “Jumps and Drops” workshops to the fundamental core skills, you can learn to navigate technical trails with confidence. We also offer MIAS (Mountain Bike Instructors Award Scheme) Level 1 and 2 courses for those looking to turn their passion into a professional qualification.
• Rock Climbing: Whether you are transitioning from “Gym to Crag” or wanting to learn the complexities of Traditional (Trad) climbing, they provide safe, expert-led sessions. We even offer ladies-only climbing sessions to foster a supportive environment for female adventurers.
• Paddlesports & More: You can book Stand-Up Paddleboarding (SUP) taster sessions, navigation courses (like “Find Your Way in a Day”), and even archery lessons.

2. Experience Bespoke Adventures

Everything Awesome excels at creating unforgettable memories through guided experiences. If you aren’t looking for a “lesson” but rather a “journey,” they offer guided mountain bike rides through the rugged Peak District, “Waterfall Walks” (such as the stunning Middle Black Clough), and “Weaselling” (a unique Peak District activity involving scrambling through natural rock tunnels and boulders). These sessions are perfect for families, stag/hen dos, or corporate team building events where the goal is to bond through shared adventure.

3. Specialized Rehabilitation & Inclusion

What truly sets us apart is our “sister” mission in Neuro and Spinal Rehabilitation. We act as specialist Rehabilitation Assistants (RAs), working alongside Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists to support individuals recovering from life-altering injuries, including brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, stroke, and cerebral palsy.

We believe that the outdoors should be accessible to everyone. If you have complex physical needs or use a wheelchair, Everything Awesome uses their specialized skill set to adapt activities like climbing or paddling to your specific requirements. We focus on the “Adventure Sports Specialist Rehab” model, helping individuals rediscover their identity and physical potential through nature.

4. Empowerment and Mental Well-being

Beyond the physical activities, Everything Awesome provides a space for personal growth. Our philosophy is built on “Challenge by Choice,” allowing participants to set their own limits and overcome fears at their own pace. This approach builds immense self-confidence and offers a powerful mental health boost, using the transformative power of the Peak District’s landscape to reduce stress and foster a sense of accomplishment.

Summary

In short, Everything Awesome provides the tools, the expertise, and the environment for you to “ditch the routine.” Whether you are an elite athlete looking to shave seconds off your descent, a beginner nervous about your first climb, or someone navigating a difficult recovery journey, we offer a personalized roadmap to help you experience the world in an awesome way.

A lensatic compass, often called a military compass is the gold standard for serious land navigation. Unlike a basic scouting compass, it’s designed for extreme durability and high precision sighting, allowing you to follow a bearing with minute accuracy even in rough terrain.

The name comes from the magnifying lens used to read the dial while simultaneously sighting a distant landmark.

The Three Main Parts

To understand how it works, you have to look at its “clamshell” design:

1. The Cover: Protects the compass glass and contains the sighting wire (front sight), which you align with your target.
2. The Base: Contains the compass dial, the bezel (the clicking ring), and a thumb loop to stabilize your grip.
3. The Rear Sight: A flip-up bracket containing the lens. It has a small sighting slit at the top to align with the front wire.

Key Features & Terminology

If you’re looking at a high-quality model, you’ll notice a few specific technical details:

• The Floating Dial: Instead of just a needle, the entire scale rotates. It usually features two scales: degrees (0–360) and mils (0–6400, used primarily by artillery and for high-precision mapping).
• Luminous Markings: Quality compasses use tritium (self-glowing gas) or phosphorescent paint so you can navigate in total darkness.
• Induction Damping: This is a fancy way of saying the dial settles quickly. Rather than spinning forever, internal magnets create a “drag” that stops the dial in seconds without needing liquid filling (which can bubble or leak).
• The Bezel Ring: This clicks as you turn it. On military models, each click usually represents 3°, allowing you to set a course in the dark by counting clicks.

How to Use It: The Sighting Technique

The lensatic compass is unique because it allows for a cheeksight method. This is how you get that pinpoint accuracy:

1. Open the cover to a 90° angle and the rear sight to a 45° angle.
2. Put your thumb through the loop and steady the compass against your cheek.
3. Look through the sighting slit and align the front wire with a landmark (like a specific tree or peak).
4. Without moving your head, look down through the lens to read the exact degree under the black index line.

A Quick “Pro-Tip” Warning

Because it’s made of metal and magnets, the lensatic compass is sensitive to Magnetic Interference. If you try to take a reading while standing next to a truck, a power line, or even holding a heavy rifle, the dial will deviate. Always step away from large metal objects before trusting your heading.

Book onto one of our nav courses and you can get to learn much more about navigation skills

Although the title does preclude a gender, i hope the message doesnt. The message being, go prepared. So many problems, just wont become a problem, if you are prepared for them.

The classic “gentleman’s pat-down.” Whether you’re checking your pockets before leaving the house or making sure you haven’t lost your soul (or your keys) at a funeral, this mnemonic has a surprisingly long history.

While most people use it as a quick checklist to ensure they have their essentials, its roots are a bit more “holy.”

The Meaning Behind the Phrase

The phrase is a mnemonic for the Sign of the Cross (the ritual gesture made by Christians, primarily Catholics). The movement of the hand corresponds to the items mentioned:

• Spectacles: Touching the forehead.
• Testicles: Touching the lower abdomen/waist.
• Wallet: Touching the left shoulder (where a man historically kept his wallet in an inside jacket pocket).
• Watch: Touching the right shoulder (referring to a pocket watch kept in the waistcoat).

Historical Context

• The “Pocket” Logic: The order reflects a time when men’s fashion was more formal. Most men were right-handed, so they kept their wallet in the left breast pocket (easy to reach with the right hand) and their pocket watch in the right waistcoat pocket.
• Pop Culture: You might recognize this from movies like Nuns on the Run (1990) or Austin Powers, where it’s used as a joke to help someone “fake” being religious. It also famously appeared in Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino.
• The “Pocket Pat”: Today, it’s mostly used by people who aren’t necessarily religious but want a rhythmic way to ensure they haven’t forgotten their gear.

For me, as an outdoor professional, this tends to mean, phone, keys, penknife and specs. (plus first aid kit as a default)

When working, this could include, compass, or bike pocket multi tool,

Of course, in 2026, the modern version is probably more like: “Phone, Keys, Wallet, Vape”—though that doesn’t quite have the same theological ring to it.

While out with a few clients working on night nav one of them was really struggling, his pacing and timing were very accurate. Accurate, but it appeared that he was unable to reliably follow a bearing across moorland in the dark.

His compass had a couple of bubbles in it so I gave him one of my spares which I knew was accurate and we tried again, this time I walk next to him. Encouraged small sections, encourage rechecking his bearing, etc. He was doing everything right but consistently 20, /30 m away from his destination..

I checked with him, are you carrying your mobile phone close to your compass that will have an effect with the magnetism he reassured me. No, he wasn’t

His eyes then lit up. He was carrying small battery-powered hand warmers which also had quite powerful batteries inside of them. He had them in his chest pocket but when his hands were cold he was sliding them in his gloves and of course he was holding his compass with those same gloves.

Removing those hand warmers and putting them in his bag resolved all the problems and with that one action that man can now navigate accurately.

I learnt a lesson last night.

I had never imagined I needed to check for hand warmers!

Click the Book Now link to contact us about booking one of our awesome night nav sessions

Syllabus: Navigation in a Day

Course Philosophy: Observation first, tools second. We learn to see the landscape before we learn to measure it.

09:30 – 10:00 | The Blind Walk & Observation

• The “No-Map” Start: We begin walking immediately. No maps are opened yet.
• Introductions: Building group rapport while moving.
• Active Observation: Students are prompted to describe every detail of the environment:
  • Underfoot: Heather, marsh, gravel, or rock?
  • Gradient: Are we climbing, descending, or “contouring” (staying level)?
  • Linear Features: Fences, walls, woodland edges, or tracks.
  • The “Micro” View: Distinct rocks or specific types of vegetation.

10:00 – 10:30 | Translating Sight to Paper

• The Chronological Reveal: We open the map at our current location.
• Mapping the Memory: Using the instructor’s observation notes, students match their physical journey to the symbols on the map.
• Symbology: Learning to identify roads, tracks, marshes, and water features based on what we just walked through.

10:30 – 11:00 | Distance & Movement

• The Human Yardstick: Introduction to Pacing (counting steps) and Timing (estimating time based on speed).
• Practical Calibration: Estimating and then measuring the distance to a visible feature.

11:00 – 11:30 | Tools of the Trade

• The Compass: Identifying parts (baseplate, housing, needle) and its primary purpose.
• Map-to-Ground: Using the compass to “orient” the map so it matches the real world.
• Scales: Understanding how 1:25,000 differs from $1:50,000 and how that affects our perception of distance.

11:30 – 12:00 | Interpreting the Shape of the Land

• Introduction to Contours: Understanding height and steepness through line density.
• Identifying Landforms: Visualizing and locating spurs (shoulders) and re-entrants (small valleys/gullies) in the surrounding terrain.

12:00 – 12:30 | Lunch

12:30 – 1:30 | Walking the Needle

• Taking a Bearing: Transitioning from “looking” to “measuring.” How to take a bearing from the map.
• Off-Path Navigation: Following a bearing into open terrain to reach a specific, non-obvious location.
• Group Navigation: Working collectively to stay on a line.

1:30 – 2:30 | Advanced Strategy: “The Navigator’s Toolkit”

• Handrailing: Using linear features (fences, streams) to move quickly and safely.
• Aiming Off: Deliberately aiming to one side of a target to ensure you know which way to turn when you hit a “handrail.”
• Collecting & Catching Features: Identifying “markers” to look for along the way and “stop signs” (catching features) that tell us if we’ve gone too far.

2:30 – 4:00 | Consolidation, Relocation & Journey Back

• The “Lead” Rotation: Students take turns leading legs of the journey back to the start.
• Synthesizing Skills: Combining pacing, observation, and bearings into one fluid process.
• 4:00 PM: Course Finished.

Every mountain height in the UK traces back to a small harbour in Cornwall

That is a fascinating bit of British cartographic history! It sounds like a tall tale, but it’s 100% true. When you see a map that says Ben Nevis is 1,345 metres above sea level, that “level” isn’t an average of the whole coast—it refers to one specific spot in Cornwall.

The Newlyn Datum

The “small harbour” you’re thinking of is Newlyn, near Penzance. Since 1921, Newlyn has been the home of the Ordnance Survey’s Mean Sea Level (MSL) datum.

Before this, the UK used a reference point in Liverpool, but it was found to be inaccurate due to the massive tidal range of the River Mersey. Newlyn was chosen because it sits on stable granite rock and faces the open Atlantic, making its tides more representative of the “true” sea level.

How It Works: The Great Levelling

Between 1915 and 1921, scientists took hourly measurements of the tide at Newlyn. They averaged these readings over six years to find the “mean” (average) sea level.

• The Brass Bolt: Inside a small stone hut at the end of the Newlyn pier, there is a brass bolt. This bolt represents Ordnance Datum Newlyn (ODN).
• The Chain Reaction: From that single bolt, the Ordnance Survey used “levelling” (a process of manual measurement using telescopic sights and rods) to map height across the entire country.
• The Benchmarks: They created a web of roughly 750,000 benchmarks (those little horizontal lines with an arrow ↑ˉ​ carved into old stone buildings and bridges) that all link back, link by link, to that one bolt in Cornwall.

Is it still accurate?

Technically, sea levels have risen by about 20 centimeters since the Newlyn datum was set in 1921. However, the Ordnance Survey continues to use the 1921 Newlyn mark as the “zero” point to maintain consistency. If they changed the starting point now, every map in the country would become “wrong” overnight, and every mountain height would have to be recalculated!

Fun Fact: The “Island” Exception

While every mountain in Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) uses Newlyn, the islands often have their own:

• Northern Ireland uses a datum in Belfast.
• The Scilly Isles use a datum at St Mary’s.
• The Outer Hebrides have their own reference point at Stornoway.

How to Tell the Weather from Clouds

High-Level Clouds (Above 20,000 ft)

–

• Cirrus: Thin, wispy “mare’s tails.” Fair now, but rain likely in 24–48 hours.

• Cirrocumulus: “Mackerel scales.” Change in weather coming.

• Cirrostratus: Thin veil, creates a halo around sun/moon. Rain/snow in 12–24 hours.

Mid Level Clouds (6,500 – 20,000 ft)

• Altostratus: Gray sheet. Steady rain/snow arriving in a few hours.

• Altocumulus: Fluffy balls. On warm mornings, signals afternoon thunderstorms.

Low-Level Clouds (Below 6,500 ft)

• Cumulus: “Cotton balls.” Small means fair; vertical growth means storms.

• Stratus: Flat gray blanket. Gloomy with drizzle or mist.

• Stratocumulus: Lumpy and dark. Storm brewing or front passing.

Dan’ger Clouds

• Nimbostratus: Dark and thick. Steady, prolonged rain.

• Cumulonimbus: Towering with anvil top. Heavy rain, lightning, and thunder.

• Wall/Shelf Clouds: Wedge-shaped. Severe winds and potential tornadoes.

Quick Tips

• Vertical Growth: Atmosphere is unstable; expect a storm.

• Dark Color: Cloud is heavy with water; rain is imminent.

“

In Mountain Training terms, “summer conditions” are defined by the absence of winter hazards (snow/ice) rather than by the calendar, usually requiring no crampons or ice axe for safety. These conditions involve navigating, leading groups, and traveling on steep, rocky ground, typically with long daylight hours but potential for heavy rain, strong winds, and high temperatures. 

Today was a stunning day, the skies where blue and the sun had some warmth, the moors where snow covered, but the paths where clear.
Does this constitute summer conditions? who knows, but it was a stunning day to be out working on Navigation skills.

A lichen is a complex life form that is not a single organism, but a symbiotic partnership between at least two different organisms: a fungus (the mycobiont) and a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont), which is usually either green algae or cyanobacteria. 

Key Biological Features

• Symbiotic Relationship: The fungus provides a physical structure that protects the photosynthetic partner from drying out and harsh environmental conditions. In return, the algae or cyanobacteria produce sugars via photosynthesis to feed the fungus.
• Structure: Lichens do not have roots, stems, or leaves like plants. Their main body is called a thallus, which is composed mostly of fungal filaments.
• Nutrient Source: They absorb water and minerals directly from the air and rain rather than from a substrate. 

Three Main Growth Forms

Lichens are typically categorized by their appearance: 

1. Crustose: Crust-like and tightly attached to surfaces like rocks or tree bark, often looking like a splash of paint.
2. Foliose: Leaf-like with distinct upper and lower surfaces, often resembling small pieces of lettuce.
3. Fruticose: Three-dimensional and bushy, appearing like tiny shrubs or hanging threads (e.g., “Old Man’s Beard”). 

Ecological and Human Importance

• Air Quality Indicators: Because they absorb everything from the atmosphere, lichens are highly sensitive to pollution. Their presence or absence is used by scientists to monitor air quality.
• Resilience: They are some of the toughest organisms on Earth, capable of surviving in extreme environments from the Arctic to hot deserts, and even in the vacuum of space.
• Pioneer Species: They are often the first organisms to colonize bare rock, helping to break it down into soil over thousands of years.
• Usage: Humans use lichens for traditional medicines, dyes (such as for Harris Tweed), and as a vegan source of Vitamin D