More isn't always better: Lessons from Juggling

I've just spent four days at the New Zealand Juggling Festival in Levin, a great chance to catch up with friends, and practice my skills.

While I was there a young boy from Levin, who was seeing the madness that is the juggling and circus community asked me "How many can you do?"

It's a common question. Many non-jugglers assume that more is better and the goal of juggling is to juggle as many balls as possible.

In fact, there is more beauty, variety, pleasure and entertainment to be gained from juggling with three or even two clubs, balls or other props as there is from attempting the technically demanding multi-prop juggling. Even better is club passing, when you weave a pattern between two, three, four or a dozen or more other jugglers.

More clubs or balls aren't better. They are much much harder to pull off technically, only last for a short space of time, more tiring to do, and less interesting to watch, each pass must be done at high speed, so much so that most people watching will only see a blur of balls.

It's the same with speaking. Your message will have more impact, and be more memorable if you slow down, give each of your points time to shine and make one or two points well.

Better to make at most three good points, and revisit them in different ways, than to try and cram too many into a speech. It's more enjoyable for you, and easier on the audience who won't be blinded by a rush of ideas. And it allows you to play with variations which make things more entertaining for the audience.

More isn't better, in juggling or in speaking