Why I Juggle

[Music]

it was 7 p.m

on september 17 2012. i was a nervous

college freshman

with three hacky sex in my hand i walked

through the door and muttered

i’m new here jared greeted me with a

smile

and said welcome to juggling club and i

didn’t know it in this time

but that moment changed my life forever

in one day i learned how to juggle in

one month

i was learning new tricks in six months

i was

performing with the club and in one year

i became president of our juggling club

since then i’ve taught literally

thousands of people

how to juggle i use a simple three-step

process

that with some commitment and optimism

has a pretty high success rate

we start with one ball

step one is all about learning the toss

and expecting gravity this is the throw

you’ll use for all three balls when

you’re ready

so mastering this is key now you might

be wondering

how can something so simple teach you

something

so fundamental let me share a story

it was 2 a.m on a wednesday i was

finishing a 10 hour shift in a

commercial kitchen

i had chocolate on my chef’s jacket and

cinnamon in my hair net

i was just pulling the finished

chocolates from the blast chiller

when i noticed something wrong i

mistempered the entire batch

and lost 500 units of product

i lost thousands of dollars worth of

ingredients and time

my eyes bloodshot my hands cramping up

i was exhausted and i was defeated

this was the perfect moment for me to

give up on my idea

for a chocolate company and as tempted

as i was to

quit and never look back i remembered

step one

in learning how to juggle the path

your juggling ball takes it goes up

and it comes down in life you’ll have

ups

and you’ll have downs sometimes you’ll

be happy and sometimes sad you’ll have

successes and of course

failures sometimes you’ll create a

delicious

batch of chocolate and sometimes you’ll

mess it all up

instead of fearing gravity and fearing

these low points

expect them rely on them and use it as a

checkpoint on your journey

this is perhaps the most basic element

of juggling

and maybe even the most basic element of

learning how to approach

life itself because nobody learned how

to juggle

without dropping the ball a few times

and heck nobody learned how to make

ten thousand chocolate bars without

messing up 500 along the way

step two here we add a ball

step two requires a bit more

coordination

throwing the ball in an x pattern we

toss

toss catch catch step two will feel

uncomfortable at first

but you’ve got to encourage yourself to

throw that second ball

even if you don’t think you’ll catch it

step two requires you to take a chance

it was 3pm in the office i desperately

needed a pick-me-up a coffee sure

but it looked like everyone needed a

boost i was eyeing a bowl of

apples that my boss had brought in and i

knew exactly what to do

i grabbed three and started juggling

staring at me in confusion

i asked my co-workers to join in before

i knew it all 20 of us were throwing

apples around

and as fast as i could i was giving them

tips and tricks on how to actually

juggle

but of course apples were already

getting squished and splattered and

split open left and right

amidst the laughter our boss walked in

we all

froze as a few apples continued to roll

across the floor

my boss told me these apples are for

eating

not for throwing i was mortified

but step two taught me a valuable lesson

take a chance

so i followed my boss into his office

apologized for our behavior

and pitched him on the benefits of

learning how to juggle

he smiled appreciated my honesty

and made sure from then on that all of

our staff

had a proper set of juggling balls on

their desk

i think i sold him on it step two

taught me to take a chance and it just

might have saved my job too

we’ve made it to the final step

it was week one on my move to a foreign

country

i was living in the bicycle capital of

germany where there are three times as

many bikes as humans

trying to fit in i bought a used bike

and was headed into the city for work

i didn’t know my way around so i was

checking my phone looking at the maps

i had one hand on the bike and one

holding my phone

before i could even make my first turn i

heard loud sirens

and an abrupt abstain imagine

an american being pulled over by the

german police

in a panic i nearly fell off my bike i

used my best german to explain myself

and admitted i’m from new york where

this would never happen

but it didn’t do me any good they wrote

me a ticket

and i felt like an embarrassed foreigner

i went on my way and

to make matters worse my new bike gets a

flat tire

ever tried riding a bike on a flat tire

for six miles

not easy now i’m late to work

frustrated out 30 euro from my ticket

and exhausted from pedaling so hard on a

flat

it was the perfect recipe for a bad day

but when i arrived at work the

endorphins kicked in i made some new

friends at the repair shop

and i was really working on my thighs of

steel

juggling three balls with just two hands

the math doesn’t add up

so you have to be willing to lean in

don’t think

just do if you’ve never juggled before

you

probably fail at your first go you’ll

throw the ball

too high or too late or too early in

somebody else’s face or

maybe your own but that’s okay this is

the final step

to a successful cascade what i learned

here is to lean into the situation at

hand

find the good in the bad and push or

pedal forward

this is step three to learning how to

juggle lean in

when you drop a ball pick it up when

you’re given a chance

take it and when you get a flat tire

keep pedaling the endorphins might just

be worth it

juggling taught me to expect gravity

juggling taught me to take chances and

juggling

taught me to lean in and the truth is

juggling like life is quite beautiful

now that is an idea worth spreading

thank you

you