Hi, I'm Scott Moehring.
You'll often find me thinking deep thoughts, scribbling ideas on random scraps of paper, picking up heavy stuff, playing outside, playing inside, looking at simple things in wonder, being tuned-in to opportunities to learn and share cool and useful stuff, and generally just loving life in beautiful Northern Michigan.
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What you'll find here
This site is a collection of stuff I've made over the last 20 years or so. It was all made to share. I get interested in something, dive deep, and find oddly effective or fun things that aren't common knowledge. I try them for a while to see if they really work. If they do, then I tell others, and gradually simplify them down to their essence. If I find something is a "quality item" that I'm sharing a lot, I use my design skills and love of teaching to refine it into an easily sharable thing. My goal is to make the goodness so simple, easy, and fun that anyone will want to try it.
Enjoy, and please share with other curious people!
Scott Moehring
Enjoy, and please share with other curious people!
Scott Moehring
Why this site happened - the chalkboard (2014)
Origin story: This site began on a chalkboard. In November 2014, I helped my brother David and his partner Sean do the holiday decorating for the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. They do awesome work, which you should definitely check out here. My contribution was designing some aquarium-themed snowflake designs which were animated and projected onto the walls.
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While we were taking a short break, I grabbed a piece of blue chalk and started doodling on their wall chalkboard. After 30+ minutes, I had filled it up with a bunch of the things I had created over the years. Seeing them all on one page, I realized that most of them had never seen the light of day, or were only known by a small group of people.
My first big insight was that my dad had started his own side project (Beaver Good Sports, a good sportsmanship program for kids), but was never able to fully develop it before he died. As I scanned my eyes across what I had written down, I knew I couldn't let that happen to all these ideas.
My second big insight was something my brother said when I showed him the chalkboard: "I can't believe you are still working where you are when you have all these good ideas waiting to be developed." I've always had a traditional corporate job. I guess I never thought I could make a living from my "side ideas". But this matter-of-fact comment was coming from my brother who had made a living off his ideas his entire adult life. I knew the seed had been planted. I knew I had to get the things I had made "out there".
I came up with the name "Moehr Better" and bought the domain at the end of 2016. It took me until Nov 2017 before I began sharing it. I continue to add content as I create new things, or reboot old ones. Slow and steady improvements overall, with some Deep Work and focused effort on 1-2 projects at a time. I've been trying to push to completion, then move on to the next one that seems ready.
Years later (2023), after lots of development progress and planning but still having no personal products available for sale, my oldest son helped me see I had made my own Upper Limit. I kept bumping my head into it, and somehow I believed the limit was real.
Things like:
The sand in my hourglass isn't infinite. I never want to face that awful feeling of running out of time without ever having really tried to make a living from the things I've made.
My first big insight was that my dad had started his own side project (Beaver Good Sports, a good sportsmanship program for kids), but was never able to fully develop it before he died. As I scanned my eyes across what I had written down, I knew I couldn't let that happen to all these ideas.
My second big insight was something my brother said when I showed him the chalkboard: "I can't believe you are still working where you are when you have all these good ideas waiting to be developed." I've always had a traditional corporate job. I guess I never thought I could make a living from my "side ideas". But this matter-of-fact comment was coming from my brother who had made a living off his ideas his entire adult life. I knew the seed had been planted. I knew I had to get the things I had made "out there".
I came up with the name "Moehr Better" and bought the domain at the end of 2016. It took me until Nov 2017 before I began sharing it. I continue to add content as I create new things, or reboot old ones. Slow and steady improvements overall, with some Deep Work and focused effort on 1-2 projects at a time. I've been trying to push to completion, then move on to the next one that seems ready.
Years later (2023), after lots of development progress and planning but still having no personal products available for sale, my oldest son helped me see I had made my own Upper Limit. I kept bumping my head into it, and somehow I believed the limit was real.
Things like:
- what if the ideas are so old that no one will find them relevant?
- what if my striving for simple solutions makes them seem so obvious that they seem low value?
- what if no one likes what I make enough to pay for it?
- what if building classes takes more time than I have available, but doesn't earn enough to do it full-time?
- and the most counter-intuitive one, what if this takes off quickly and then I'm mad at myself that I didn't try sooner?
The sand in my hourglass isn't infinite. I never want to face that awful feeling of running out of time without ever having really tried to make a living from the things I've made.