Get your head out of the gutter.
I don’t mean your actual balls.
(Although, I can admit that the older I get, the bigger and lower my figurative balls get. Something about inching closer to 30 that really makes me not give a f*ck about taking up space and getting what I want in life 🤷♀️ ya feel me?)
Before I explain what weird balls I’m asking you about, can I call out on the #BoyMoms?
Along with the ‘getting older thing,’ this also means my kids are getting older and we are STILL dealing with a partially potty-trained 4.5-year-old.
Thankfully, my son has figured out how to mostly avoid accidents, especially the ones that involve shit (although he’s no stranger to the daily skid mark).
He uses the potty (while standing) and, without a miss, will simultaneously pee on anything and everything within a 24-inch radius. Who knew becoming a mom meant wiping asses AND toilets for years straight?
But nighttime is a completely different story. He still wears pull-ups, and I’m daily reminded it’s time to wean him from pull-ups and his unending need to drink 20 oz. of water before bed.
He guzzles water down as if it’s Kool-aid, but what kind of parent tells their kid they can’t drink water?
I recently asked him if he wakes up in the middle of the night to go pee and his words were, “Yeah. I feel it, and I can’t hold it. So it just happens.” 🤷♂️
And who am I to judge when this is exactly what I whispered to Josh when I peed my pants on Bourbon Street as a whole grown-ass adult? 😂
Please reply back if you’re a boy mom, or just a mom in general, and have some kind of secret mastery tricks to convince your kids to ditch the pull-ups.
Now, speaking of balls…
My hand-eye coordination with any type of sport is bad. Really bad. Ask me to play Rock Band on expert level, and I can finish an entire song. But ask me to play a game of “basketball dodgeball” with my daughter’s entire basketball team and their parents… I quiver in my seat.
(That actually happened to me yesterday, except when the parents asked me to join I probably sounded like a stuck-up, unavailable mom who doesn’t participate when I blurted, “No, no, I’m good.” Hands up and all. But I know I graciously saved myself, and my daughter, from extreme embarrassment. I can already see me now, running while trying to dribble a basketball around a half-court in my wide-leg trousers and cowboy boots. That’s a recipe for immense mortification.)
Now that I’ve talked paragraphs about all the different balls the subject line to this email could be referring to…
I’ll bring the balls back full circle as I share my answer anytime someone asks me,
“What’s the best advice you’ve ever received,” as a business owner or mom or creative or as someone who wants to do all the things?
Hard question, right? I’ve gathered such valuable advice over the years that has stuck with me and planted the seeds of the kind of human, partner, mom, friend, and business owner I am.
But when I heard this specific advice about a year into my virtual assistant business 4 years ago, it has taken up space in my mind ever since.
(I’ll add I did not come up with this, and I wish I knew the original person who did. You’ve probably heard a version similar, but let me say it how I remember it and live by, but the long version because what would I be if I wasn’t the long and raw writer I am?)
The best advice I could give to the passionate, aspiring, dreamer:
Life is a series of balls (not the literal kind). Everything in your life is a ball you add to the juggle.
Every successful person who hits the goals they set out to achieve has to learn which balls in life are plastic and which ones are glass.
You can drop the plastic balls and pick them back up. They won’t break. The juggle won’t end. But the glass? Those are the things you can’t get wrong, you can’t drop. They’ll break, and there will be a mess, and your juggle will have to start over.
These glass balls are the priorities in your life–the family, the values, the things you hold close. The glass balls are the daily, needle-moving actions that are going to get you closer to where you want to go.
The best thing you can do is figure out what you can drop and pick back up, and what you can’t drop.
In summary, life is just an imperfect, unpredictable balancing act.
Need I say more?
While I’ve been thinking of this quote for the past 5 years, I’m completely living in this juggling season right now.
In essence, I’ve got a LOT of glass balls and my arms are working overtime to keep them from dropping.
But similar to someone who juggles, practice is everything. The more you do it, the longer you do it well, and the better you become until at some point it may not feel “effortless” but it will be familiar. And you’ll know how to follow the motions, you’ll be quicker, and smarter, and you’ll know how to adapt if the balls change position. Your confidence guides you. And what once seemed impossible, perfectly juggling glass balls, or plastic balls, or swords on fire, you’ve done it before and you’ll do it again.
This, to me, is one of the quintessential lessons I’ve learned on my path to being better, smarter, wiser, and capable of reaching my goals, both in business and out: it’s not something you’re born with or without (the balancing act that is). It’s something you learn.
I think it’s easy for us to look outward, see successful people around us, and say, “It looks easy for them. There’s something they have that I don’t, and that’s why they’re doing it.”
But that’s not true at all–in fact, it’s a dangerous line of thinking. That’s the exact kind of thinking that stops you from taking risks, from believing there’s more for you, from setting those lofty goals and just going for them.
The truth? We’re all capable of being better mentally, emotionally, and physically than we think we are.
We’re all capable of doing hard shit and growing in the uncomfortable.
And we’re 100% capable of becoming the best juggler in the room if we just tried–if we learned how to keep going when shit gets tough and to not be afraid to drop a ball and pick it back up without fear, or guilt, or shame.
So let me ask you, have you dropped any balls lately?
If so, pick them up, put them back in rotation, and remember to ask yourself, “which ones are plastic and which ones are glass?”
Show yourself some love today,
You’ve earned it.
As always,
Taylor Torres
Hi, I'm Taylor Torres, accidental adulting expert and purveyor of all things unhinged. When I'm not navigating the rollercoaster of the real world, you can find me dishing out a weekly dose of humor, heart, and a dash of TMI right here in this little corner of the internet.
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