This is Five Minute Friday episode number 74: The Five Balls of Life.
The first CEO and President of Coca-Cola, Brian Dyson, once delivered a speech. And it’s a very impactful speech, I’ll read it out to you now.
“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them work, family, health, friends, and spirit. And you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it’ll bounce back. But the other four balls, family, health, friends, and spirit, are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.” -Brian Dyson
So Brian Dyson delivered this speech when he was presenting at Georgia Tech, in his Georgia Tech commencement speech, and this is a very interesting metaphor for looking at your life and your commitments and the things that you are constantly, as the metaphor suggests, juggling in your life. And if you think about it, it’s actually true, that when we work, and we’re dedicated and passionate and excited about work, we put in a lot of time, sometimes 100-hour weeks. If you work a lot, you achieve great results. But that comes at a price. You take away time from your family or from other places in your life. At the same time, if you don’t work a lot —everybody’s had these times – when, for instance, you have a week off, or a month off, or you maybe you get ill for a few days. And you just don’t work for some reason, then you come back to work, and after some time, everything is sorted out again. And even if it’s not sorted out, you go and get a new job, and then things are sorted out. So it’s easy, it’s possible, for that ball to jump back up. And that’s in line with the concept of it being a rubber ball.
Whereas if you don’t spend enough time with your family, or on your health, or with your friends, or on your spirit, on your consciousness, on your mental health, or just your sanity, then all those things can be affected. And then, as Brian Dyson says, they’ll never be the same again. So that’s something to think about. I really like that idea, so whenever I’m working too much, I try to remember that it’s a rubber ball and aim to cut my workday short and just go and do something, spend more time with family, or whenever I have the opportunity to spend time, especially to spend time with family, I do that as a priority. I don’t worry about work and what’s going on there, and I know that whenever I need to, I’ll come back in and I’ll fix things up, it’s a rubber ball, it’ll bounce back up.
So hopefully that was some inspiration for you for this weekend, and see how you can think of your work as a rubber ball, and how actually important are those other 4 glass balls that you’re juggling in your life at any given point in time. And I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, happy analyzing.
