What is this?

Hey there! I’m John Mosesman and I write the things on this site.

What is this? Well, to be honest I’m not totally sure yet. What I do know is that I’m always finding new and interesting things to learn about, and I like to share those things. So this site is a way for me to do that.

Well what does “better than average” mean?

A while ago I realized that I like to jump head-first into new things that excite me and learn as much as I can as fast as possible. Once something sparks my interest, I’ll find every blog, podcast, video, and book I can on the subject–live and breathe the material until I’ve gathered everything I can on it. What I soon realized was that there’s a point I would reach in all of these subjects where to continue to make progress, it would require an extraordinary amount of time and effort, and I just couldn’t commit to that. I liked these things, but I wasn’t willing to give up other things in my life to go further. So, the idea of being “better than average” was born. Being better than average means harvesting all of the most-effective gains of learning up to the point where you start to hit diminishing returns for your time and effort.

There are some things where it pays to be an expert—to put in that long-haul grind to get as close to mastery as possible. Maybe in your career or your relationships—things that really matter. But for most areas in life, it’s ok to just be better than average.

Juggling

Maybe the best way to explain it is with an example. Take for instance someone who can juggle. Imagine you’re at a child’s birthday party and a juggler is there. We’ve seen them on TV before: juggling four or five balls and asking for someone to throw them another. It’s impressive, and I imagine it’s really really hard to do. It’s a huge hit at a child’s birthday party.

However, there probably isn’t a juggler at that birthday. Chances are no one hired one. But you know who is there? You. And do you know what would be an equally huge hit? Someone who can juggle. Just plain-old-normal-three-ball juggling, and that could be you.

You see, the difference between can juggle and can not juggle is a sharp one, but the effort to cross that line is not. It’d take some practice, sure, but the reward you’d get for relatively small effort would be more than worth it. After a few hours of practice you’re now someone who can juggle. That’s a skill you can keep forever—ready to bust out at any time.

So that’s what BTA is all about. Learning things to enrich ours and others lives the most effective way possible. I hope you enjoy learning this stuff as much as I do.

- John