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