The juggle/s

My go-to trick when I’m around kids – if I can find 3 things of a similar size and weight (balls, blocks, toys etc) – is to juggle them.

At home I have a set of juggling balls that I love picking up, and while I certainly haven’t mastered 3 by any stretch, I’ve recently started trying some new stuff.

I once tried juggling 4 balls and after about 40 solid minutes of trying, managed one successful throw and catch for each ball without a drop – 4 is hard, and a stretch too far for me at the moment.

But then I realised the classic figure-8 juggle isn’t the only thing you can do with 3, so I’ve been practicing.

(That’s called the cascade by the way) 👇

The two variations I’ve been trying are the reverse cascade, where the balls get thrown around the outside instead of through the middle 👇

and the shower 👇

The two new ones are a lot harder, but it’s really fun to try to get a handle on them… they’re more technically challenging, but I feel a large part of that is because they’re new and less automatic for my brain compared to the cascade, which I’ve been doing on and off for years.

Which I realise is a beautiful parallel for the juggle of work and business.

If you’ve only ever done things one way (sending proposals, invoicing after delivery, dealing with scope creep…) and it’s already pretty hard but you’re good enough at it, then trying a completely different way (eg fixed pricing or payment up front) might either feel like a stretch too far…

Or just a fun new way of doing things.

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📷 I believe the images were originally from the libraryofjuggling.com website but some were found on Wikipedia.

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