Are you a master juggler?...or do you keep dropping the ball?

I was staring across the schoolyard basketball court, trying to avoid any eye contact with the cool kids. You know, the group of kids that everyone wants to be ‘in’ with? Well, I wasn’t. I’d recently moved schools and was in year 8, 13 years old and awkward as hell. I was classified as a city kid and didn’t have any friends. To quote Brené Brown , I had to “embrace the suck” and was feeling totally vulnerable.
In this moment of vulnerability, I caught a glimpse of someone on the other side of the basketball court juggling three balls. This wasn’t just a simple juggling pattern like you see in the background of movies like Gladiator, this was some seriously sophisticated juggling. The kind you might expect to see at Cirque du Soleil! I was simply mesmerised and couldn’t help but step out of my fear and vulnerability so I could learn how to juggle.
Predictably, I learned how to juggle, in fact, juggling became such an obsession for me that it was all I really did for a few years. I loved the challenge, the process of learning, the perfect combination of mental stimulation and physical mastery. Sadly, my understanding of society at the time didn’t really reinforce that I should pursue juggling. Instead, I was met with a staunch view that ‘juggling was a game’ and ‘you should focus on your studies’ because ‘juggling will get you nowhere’.

"Juggling is just like life. Embrace the opportunity to learn and you shall be rewarded. Resist the process or attempt to explain it and you will be frustrated to no end."

As life took over, I juggled less, studied more and started succumbing to the inevitable process of detaching from my body through a sedentary existence, sitting at my desk, being inactive for hours on end and losing my strength, flexibility, and mobility. The repercussions of modern life sound heavily biased toward the physical but don’t be fooled. If you are weak, inflexible and not very mobile with your body, your mind has no choice but to follow. It’s similar for somebody who is depressed, anxious or tense, their body language reflects the state of their mind.
While I juggled less, I never stopped completely. At university, I was part of the Circus Society and taught many people how to juggle. For anyone who has worked with me, they know that I have always had juggling balls at my desk and would often use them as a ‘stress down’ activity to bring a bit of fun into the work environment and break things up a little.
A few years ago, I watched Tod Samson’s hit series “redesign my brain” and in one of the episodes, he was tasked with learning how to juggle as a way of improving his brain’s capability. In fact, research has now demonstrated that learning how to juggle increases both white (Scholz et al., 2009) and grey matter (Draganski, et al., 2004; Driemeyer, et al., 2008) in the brain and also reduces anxiety (Nakahara, et al., 2007). Additional benefits include improvement in circulation, posture, hand-eye coordination, peripheral vision, memory, and attention just to name a few. With so many benefits associated with such a simple and accessible task, I started exploring how Juggling could serve as an antidote to the physical and mental stagnation that stifles even the most innovative organisations.
Indeed, Juggling also serves as a powerful metaphor for many of the challenges we face in corporate life. Juggling is one of the best ways to highlight Carol Dweck’s work and diagnose whether someone is exhibiting a fixed or growth mindset (Dweck, 2008). In organisational development, we often speak of wanting to tap into the holy grail of engagement…the ‘flow’ state as outlined in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work (Csikszentmihaly , 1990). Once somebody has learned the basics, Juggling is one of the best ways to replicate the state of flow in anyone. Given the complexity and difficulty faced when learning how to juggle, there are many opportunities to simply give up. Over the years I’ve taught hundreds of people how to juggle and often heard them say “I’m not coordinated enough to juggle” or “I’ve never been good at throwing and catching”, “it takes too long to learn” or my favourite “I’ll never be able to do it…it’s impossible”.
While some people get it more quickly than others, there is one trait that stands out above the rest regarding those that succeed vs those that don’t. It just so happens to line up very nicely with Angela Duckworth’s research on ‘Grit’ (Duckworth, 2016). Those that focus on getting the throw right and aren’t afraid of dropping the ball, are the ones that succeed. They are the same people that consistently drop the ball knowing that each time they do, they further hone their skill and acuity. These are the people who believe that consistent effort will enable them to learn and develop. I’ve come to realise that Juggling is all about the art of learning. It’s a process of dipping in and out of progression (pushing oneself beyond your current capability to develop) and flow (being engrossed in the task to a point where time stands still).
This equilibrium is essential for us to maintain our engagement and vitality for life. When we get too comfortable, we stop growing and we become bored. On the flip side, if we experience too much strain or discomfort, we burn-out. We must embrace and understand the infinite pattern that is at the core of everything. For anyone that has achieved flow while juggling, they will understand and appreciate that the flow of the juggling pattern in a three ball cascade follows the sign of infinity.
Without going too deep and philosophical I wanted to make a few points before closing this out:

• Learning to juggle is a fantastic way to change your brain’s composition.
• Juggling is a form of active meditation, so it relaxes your mind while stimulating your body; something our modern lives have thrown completely out of whack.
• A successful juggler embraces true grit and isn’t afraid of dropping the ball…. Repeatedly and to keep picking them up to try again.
• Juggling represents the dynamic process of learning agility by balancing the challenges of growth with the seduction of comfort.
• With discipline and consistency, your practice will be rewarded with progress beyond what you ever thought was possible. All within the same infinite framework. This doesn’t have much to do with talent…but a lot to do with motivation and hard work.
• Juggling is just like life. Embrace the opportunity to learn and you shall be rewarded. Resist the process or attempt to explain it and you will be frustrated to no end.

I still juggle to this day and continue to deepen my practice. I use juggling in my work as a coach and psychologist to enable people to create conscious change. Therefore, the aspiration is to be both a master juggler and to keep dropping the balls. I’ve learned to love the sound of the dull thud that a juggling ball makes when dropped. It’s no longer a source of frustration or angst but a simple reminder that I’m still learning.

If you’d like me to help you break through barriers, align your team or enhance your organisation’s culture book in a free 30minute discussion so we can discuss how I can support you.

About Joe

Joe’s visionis to enable people to be all of who they are by aligning who they are with whothey want to be. Working with Leaders and their teams, Joe coaches people tohave the conversations that most need to be had. With a Masters ofOrganisational Psychology and 12 years experience as a consultant, coach,facilitator and Culture expert, Joe understands what makes people tick. Joe’sclients love his approachable nature, flexible style and deep insight thatcreates meaningful changes to peoples’ lives.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

Draganski B, Gaser C, Busch V, Schuierer G, Bogdahn U, et al. (2004) Changes in grey matter induced by training. Neuroplasticity: Nature 427(6972): 311–312.

Driemeyer J, Boyke J, Gaser C, Bu¨ chel C, May A (2008) Changes in Gray Matter Induced by Learning—Revisited. PLoS ONE 3(7): e2669. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002669

Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. New York, NY, US: Scribner/Simon & Schuster.

Dweck, Carol S.. (2008) Mindset :the new psychology of success New York : Ballantine Books

Nakahara, T., Nakahara, K., Uehara, M. et al. (2007) Effect of juggling therapy on anxiety disorders in female patients. BioPsychoSocial Med, 1: 10. doi:10.1186/1751-0759-1-10

Scholz J,Klein M. C., Behrens T. E. J., Johansen-Berg H. (2009) Training induces changesin white-matter architecture. Nature Neuroscience 12, 1370 – 1371