The Marble Game
Years ago, my mentor Stanley Becker told me something I’ve never forgotten.
During your career, you’re going to get fired at least three times for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you, your talent, or your creativity.
At the time, I thought that was an interesting observation.
Years later, I started thinking about marbles.
Yes, marbles.
Those little glass balls we played with as kids. The ones you carefully arranged in a circle, only to have someone come along with a bigger marble and knock everything all over the place.
Which, when you think about it, is a pretty accurate description of life.
We’re All Marbles in Someone’s Game
Imagine a circle filled with beautiful little marbles. Different colors, different patterns, different personalities.
Each one has its place.
Then along comes a big marble.
Maybe it has a corporate name stamped on it.
Maybe it’s someone with a particularly impressive title.
Maybe it’s simply life deciding it hasn’t caused enough trouble today.
And WHACK!
Marbles go flying.
The big marble doesn’t care where they land. Its job was to hit the circle.
Sometimes that big marble is a company that needs to look leaner because someone wants to sell it.
Sometimes it’s a decision made in a room you’ll never enter.
Sometimes it’s just another marble with a very inflated opinion of its own importance.
And suddenly, you’re outside the circle.
Now, here’s where I see things differently.
Who says you needed to be in that circle in the first place?
Maybe those weren’t your kind of people.
Maybe you’d been rolling around with the wrong marbles all along.
The Thing About Marbles Is That They’re Round
They roll.
That’s what they’re designed to do.
They don’t have corners to get stuck on.
They don’t have little feet to plant themselves firmly in one spot and refuse to move.
Give a marble a little energy and off it goes.
Of course, it doesn’t always roll in the direction you intended.
Neither does life.
We spend an enormous amount of energy trying to stay inside our comfortable little circles.
We like knowing where we belong, who surrounds us, and what tomorrow is supposed to look like.
Then something hits us.
And we mistake movement for disaster.
But what if that movement is exactly what we needed?
What if the energy that knocked us out of one circle is the very thing that sends us somewhere better?
It’s Not About How Many Marbles You Collect
I’ve always loved marbles.
But I’ve never believed that life is about collecting the biggest pile.
It’s not about how many you own, how impressive your collection looks, or whether your marble is sitting in the most prestigious circle.
It’s about what you do with the energy you’ve been given.
And perhaps what you do with the energy someone else unexpectedly gives you.
Even when they deliver it with a rather unpleasant WHACK.
There’s something else worth remembering.
Marbles don’t just happen.
Someone imagines them.
Someone makes them.
Each one has its own colors and patterns, created through heat, movement, and transformation.
No two need to be exactly alike.
So why do we spend so much of our lives trying to fit into circles where everyone is expected to look and behave the same?
Find Your Next Galaxy
Here’s where my little marble game becomes something bigger.
Imagine that circle of marbles as a tiny galaxy.
Everyone orbiting the same center.
Following the same rules.
Moving within the same boundaries.
Then something comes along and knocks one of those marbles into motion.
Suddenly, it’s traveling beyond everything it knew.
A different orbit.
Different energy.
Different possibilities.
Maybe even a whole new galaxy.
And somewhere in that galaxy, there’s a place where that little marble can shine in a way it never could before.
Not because it became a different marble.
But because it finally found a place where its own colors could catch the light.
I think about Stanley Becker’s observation differently now.
He was talking about careers, but the lesson reaches far beyond work.
Life is full of unexpected collisions.
Relationships change.
Businesses change.
People change.
Sometimes entire circles disappear.
And sometimes the very thing we think has knocked us out of the game has actually put us into another one.
So the next time life sends a big marble crashing into your carefully arranged circle, you might want to consider something before trying desperately to roll back into place.
Who says that was the only circle worth playing in?
There are a lot of marbles out there.
And an awfully big universe.
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