Glass, rubber or ceramic?

Last week, I dropped some balls.

Intentionally.

And, despite society's conditioning that "dropping the ball" is a bad thing, I want to tell you why that doesn't necessarily make me a bad person or a failure.

The juggling framework
A former colleague introduced me to an idea that has quietly changed how I manage and prioritise my energy and focus. The idea: not all the balls you're juggling in your life are made of the same material.

Some are glass. If you drop them, they shatter. The damage is real, permanent and sometimes irreparable. These are the things you simply do not put down - not for convenience, not for busyness, not for anyone.

Some are rubber. They bounce. Drop them, they come back. They were designed for exactly this - to survive the seasons when you need both hands free for something more important. Letting them fall isn't negligence. It's wisdom.

And then there's a third category that the original framework doesn't quite capture. Call them ceramic. They'll survive an occasional drop. They might chip. A piece may break off that could be glued back together. They'll show the damage over time. But drop them repeatedly - carelessly, habitually - and eventually they crack. And then, like glass, they too shatter.

The art isn't juggling everything perfectly. It's knowing which material each ball is made of - and making deliberate choices accordingly.

Last week
Last week I facilitated an intense, multi-day leadership workshop. The kind that demands your full attention and complete presence. Not partial presence. Not managed-from-a-distance presence. All of it.

So I made a call.

The glass balls stayed in the air. My faith - non-negotiable, the anchor of everything. My family - present and accounted for. My commitment to that workshop and the people in it - held with both hands.

The rubber balls I let those down without guilt. A couple of days of content. This blog - as you may have noticed. They'll bounce. They did. Here we are.

And the ceramic ones? I put down one mid-week run and skipped one day of a three-day business bootcamp I'd committed to. Those decisions were fine - this time. The run will resume. The bootcamp material can be caught up on (to a degree).

But I noted them. Because ceramic needs to be noted.

What the past two years taught me
Next Step Leadership turned two this week.

And the biggest reflection I've had about these two years of building something of my own - after two decades as an employee - is that I couldn't have made last week's calls with this much clarity and peace two years ago.

Two years ago, I would have either held everything desperately - white-knuckling every ball, terrified to put anything down - or dropped the wrong things in a panic, not knowing what would shatter and what would bounce.

The discernment didn't arrive on day one. It was built.

Through the identity shift of leaving a job title behind and finding out who I actually am without one.

Through learning that my story - my background, my faith, my funny-sounding name, my differentness - isn't something to manage. It's the whole point.

Through developing enough clarity about purpose that I don't need to be fired up every day. I just need to know why I've been created - why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Through getting into rooms with people thinking bigger, building bigger, believing bigger - and borrowing their belief until mine caught up.

Through showing up in seasons of discomfort and grief simultaneously and discovering that growth doesn't wait for better conditions.

All of that - slowly, cumulatively, deliberately - built the discernment to look at a full week and know, without anxiety: this is glass, this is rubber, this is ceramic. Act accordingly.

The caveat of hidden fragility
The ceramic ones need watching.

That's the part of this framework that's easy to miss. Glass is obvious - you protect it instinctively. Rubber is liberating - you learn to trust it quickly. Ceramic is the one that will quietly accumulate damage if you're not paying attention. It looks solid - no visible cracks after the first drop. So another drop isn't perceived as a biggie. Except…

A run skipped this week is fine. Multiple runs skipped every week for a month is a different conversation - with your body, your mental health, your discipline.

A day missed at a bootcamp is recoverable. A pattern of half-committing to your own development is not.

The ceramic balls don't announce when they're about to break. They just do. And then you look back and realise the cracks had been showing for a while.

So I note them. Every time.

Final thought
So here are the questions worth sitting with this week:

• Of all the balls you're juggling in your life, do you know which ones are glass - the ones that cannot be dropped, not even once, not even for good reasons?

• Which ones are rubber - the ones you've been holding anxiously when you could actually put them down without consequence?

• And which ones are ceramic - surviving the occasional drop but quietly accumulating damage from a pattern of carelessness? Pay particular attention to these.

Because the goal is not to keep everything in the air. The goal is to know what you're holding - and, more importantly, why.

Go on. Take the Next Step.