Juggling Elephants: An Easier Way to Get Your Most Important Things Done--Now! Book

What do you do when your life feels as busy as a three-ring circus?

Juggling Elephants tells a simple but profound story about one man with a universal problem. Mark has too much to do, too many priorities, too much stress, and too little time.

As he struggles to balance his many responsibilities without cracking under the pressure, Mark takes a break to attend the circus with his family. There he has a surprising conversation with a wise ringmaster. He leaves with a simple but powerful lesson: Trying to get everything done is like juggling elephants — impossible.

So Mark begins to think about his work, family, and personal life the way a ringmaster thinks about the many acts in a three-ring circus. He discovers that managing his various acts can be fun and easy once he changes his attitude and follows his new friend's ongoing guidance. Mark soon realizes:
• If you keep trying to juggle elephants, no one, including you, will be thrilled with your performance.
• A ringmaster cannot be in all three rings at once.
• The key to the success of a circus is having quality acts in all three rings.
• Intermission is an essential part of any good circus.

Juggling Elephants is a wonderfully lighthearted guide for everyone who feels like they're about to be squashed. It will help you better focus your time and energy, so you'll be able to enjoy more of the things that are important to you. Above all, it will teach you how to run your circus, instead of letting the circus run you.

Publishers Weekly

In this fun parable written by corporate trainers Loflin and Musig, the hero, Mark, gets more than just an afternoon of family time out of a visit to the circus with his daughter-he gets a new way of organizing his life. Using the extended metaphor of the three-ring circus, this short volume is written as a dialogue between Mark and his ringmaster mentor, who teaches him how to better coordinate the activities happening in each ring. Readers who take themselves too seriously might have trouble getting past the large print, circus illustrations and a dialogue style more commonly found in children's books. But the book passes along several circus maxims that easily translate to balancing professional and personal relationships as well as one's personal pursuits, such as "the ringmaster cannot be in all three rings at once" and "the key to the success of the circus is having quality acts in all three rings." While the advice is not new, the presentation helps it stick in your head, increasing the odds of keeping your act together. (Sept. 6)