by the
Balls
It’s a sports thing
(NO! Really)
Doug Howardell
Table of Contents
Chapter 2- Who do you think you are to tying to Grab Life by the Balls?
Chapter 4 – Intermission – Seven Stealthy Skills to help you grab and hang on
Let me start by telling you a little about me mostly cause it’s my favorite subject
but I am also an object lesson. For most of my life, life had me by the balls. I was
pathetic. I was so in the grip that I was afraid to go to my next door neighbor to ask for
ice cubes. I actually had that experience. My parents were having a classic 1950’s
cocktail party. They were running low on ice so they sent me next door to ask the people
we had lived next door to all my life if they had any ice cubes they could spare. I
reluctantly went next door and stood in front of their door but could not muster the
courage to knock. I went home and told my parents that the neighbors weren’t home. I
could not ask for something the neighbors had, weren’t using and didn’t cost them
anything. I was pathetic. Life certainly had me by the balls.
It didn’t get any better when I was an adult either. I remember when I bought my
first house; the back fence need some repair. I could not bring myself to go to the
neighbor and ask them if I could access the fence from their yard. There I was, willing to
fix, at the cost of my time and money, our mutual fence and I couldn’t ask. That fence
never did get fixed. That’s what happens when life has you by the balls, you don’t get
even your simple needs met and broken things stay broken.
I lived my life well into my 30’s without getting my needs met. I did become real
good at meeting other people’s needs though. Not that I could articulate it at the time but
I strived to meet other people’s needs because they would tell me what a good little boy I
was. My self-image was so low that I craved other people’s praise more than I wanted to
be in control my own life. This behavior led to, among other things, two failed marriages.
On the other hand, I did achieve some degree of success at a job I hated. That may sound
contradictory, success at a job I hated, but I run into that all the time. Trying to earn
praise by doing all the right things worked well in business, to a point anyway. I always
volunteered to do more or stay later. I worked hard on every task. Because of my hard
work and dedication, I got some praise and was promoted several times. As far as anyone
could tell, I was on top of the world. That was as far as anyone but me knew. I knew I
was afraid to ask for ice cubes. I knew that I was not in control of my life. I knew
somewhere deep inside that life had me by the balls.
Then one day my boss signed me up for a personal productivity class. The
company had decided that we should all use the same daily planning tool so they signed
us all up. What the company may or may not have understood was that the daily planning
tool was based on identifying your personal priorities, you own values. Something about
identifying what was important to me and building my daily activities around that,
appealed to me in a way I could not identify. I learned the system and still wanting to be
praised as a good little boy, put it to use every day. Though it wasn’t until years later, that
class that asked me to identify what was important to me, sent me on a 20 year voyage of
discovery, my own Iliad and Odyssey. I spent the next 20 years reading self help books,
listening to audio tapes and attending personal growth work shops. Along the way, I
decided to wrestle by life away from all the people who I let control me. I decided to grab
life by the balls. I made the decision to end a bad marriage. I made the decision to quit
my job and become self-employed. It was not an over night process. It was a series of
steps that led me to be writing this book today.
So now, after 20 years of work, I can share with you what I learned from reading
and study and from putting what I learned into practice. The first thing I learned is that
there is nothing new I can tell you. It’s all been said; it’s all been written. Some texts
quoted by Deepak Chopra are thousands of years old. Books were written in the U.S at
the start of the 20th century and more are still being written every day. The next thing I
learned is that across the number of texts on the subject, there are core truths, time proven
principles, and time-tested techniques. So what I can offer is the distillation of my 20
years research project, the experiments I ran on myself and my unique voice; my unique
way of articulating the truths. And by-god, I can make it fun and entertaining along the
way. For some of you, my presentation of the principles will resonate, for others it will
not. It’s really just a matter of are you ready to take control of your life or are you not
there yet and does the way I say it connect with your soul. If the words in this book reach
even one of you in a way that gets you closer to getting control over your life then I have
fulfilled my mission, lived my life’s purpose. But more on life purpose later. For now, get
ready to Grab Life By the Balls.
And by the way, we’re having a little party later. Do you have any ice cubes you
can spare?
Chapter 1
Want to Grab Life by Balls?
Grab Life by the Balls. How’s that for a title? Well it got your attention
didn’t it? I could say this book is about sports. You didn’t know that? Yea, I’m an ex-
coach in the big leagues so I’ve got lots of stories to tell where sports teach us life
lessons. OK, I made that up, never coached so much as T-Ball, but I want to use sports to
give me some cover and with a title includes grabbing balls, I need all the cover I can get.
Not a sports fan? That fine, once I set up the big picture, I’ll never mention sports again.
Trust me.
We have four major sports in the United States, basketball, football, baseball and
hockey. Some of you would add soccer to the list, but let’s leave soccer out of this for
now and focus on basketball, football and baseball. Let’s look at how each of those
games is won. What would you do if you were playing basketball and your teammate
knocked the ball away from the opposite team and the ball came toward you? If you want
to win the game, you would grab the ball. When you grab the ball you can score and win
the game. It’s the same thing in football. The other guys fumble and the ball is within
your grasp. What do you do? You grab the ball and give your team the opportunity to
score. Baseball, guy hits a line drive over the second baseman’s head and the ball comes
rolling to you. Wanna win? Of course you do, so you grab the ball. Which leads me to the
conclusion that to win at the most popular games, you have to grab the balls? Well the
same is true in life, if you want to win the game of life, you have to grab life by the balls.
Enough about sports, what I am really here to talk about is your life. This book is
about controlling your life. It’s about deciding if you want to be in control of your life or
if you are content with having some one else be in control. It’s not a magic formula for
getting rich. I’ll leave that to the guys who talk about buying foreclosed real estate. Being
in control of your life can lead you to wealth if that’s want you really want. It’s not about
how to control others. It can lead to you being a leader if that’s what you really want. It
IS about success but you have to define success. Grabbing life by the balls is not a paint-
by-numbers technique to get to some place someone else has defined. It is about you
knowing who you are, and what you want. It’s about knowing what you are willing to
give to get what you want and how to about getting what you want.
Below you get to answer the most important questions in this book or in your life for that
matter:
Y/ N Do you want to be in control of your own destiny?
Y / N Do you want to have control over what you do, when you do it and with whom
you do it?
Why would you want to be in control of your own life? I’m from L.A. where the
actors say, “What’s my motivation?” What’s you motivation for wanting to grab life by
the balls? The answer to that question is different for everyone and there are some people
who do not want to. But for those of us who do want to control our own lives, why do we
want to? It’s easier when someone else is in control, isn’t it? When some one else is in
control they do all the thinking, they figure out what must be done. Then they tell us what
to do and we just do it. We finish that set of tasks and they tell us what to do next. It’s a
great way for a lazy person to live. It’s only way for young children to love. Young
children do not have the knowledge or experience to control their own lives. Neither do
teenagers but you can’t tell them that. The whole struggle we parents have with our
teenage children is that they want to be in control of their lives and we don’t think they
have enough knowledge or experience. They think they do, hence the struggle. At some
point we are expected to become adults. We are expected to take control of our lives, to
make our own decisions. The very definition of a fully functioning adult may be someone
who is in control of his or her own life. By the time we are adults we have usually
acquired the knowledge and experience to let us safely control our own lives. Yet so
many people are willing to surrender control to someone else or just abdicate control all
together.
I ask again, why do you want to have life by the balls? Is it better to be in control
or to be controlled? Shout it out!
A Tale of Two Trips
Imagine: You are in a car going up a mountain road. It’s dark. There is snow on the
road and icy patches. You are the passenger. The driver is going fast, too fast. You can
see the shear drop off on one side and the rocks of the mountain on the other. You can
feel the car slip on the ice as you go around corners. You start to think which would be
worse to drop off the side of the mountain or crash into the rocks on the uphill side. You
ask the driver to slow down but they ignore you and continue on at the same speed. It
starts to snow. The visibility gets worse yet the driver continues at the same speed. At
each curve, and this is a windy road so there are lots of curves, you can hear the tires
squeal.
How do you feel? Are you nervous and scared or relaxed and content? Do you like
that feeling? Do you close your eyes so you don’t see what is happening?
Now reverse the scenario. You are in a car going up a mountain road. It’s dark. There is
snow on the road and icy patches. You are the driver. You can see the shear drop off on
one side and the rocks of the mountain on the other. You are going a speed that you feel
comfortable with for the conditions. You can make sure the car does not slip on the ice as
you go around corners. You know you won’t drop off the side of the mountain or crash
into the rocks. You slow down when you need to. It starts to snow. The visibility gets
worse. You slow down a little more. At each curve, and this is a windy road so there are
lots of curves, you make sure the tires don’t squeal.
How does that feel? Doesn’t it feel more comfortable when you were driving? If you
were in control then you would know the feel of the car on the road. I, for one, would
rather lead my life with my eyes open, controlling the direction and speed that I am
progressing. I want to be the driver, not the passenger. How about you, driver or
passenger in your own life?
Another Driving Analogy
Those of us who drive in major cities, especially fools like me that live in Los Angeles
know how it feels to be stuck in rush hour traffic and no one I knows likes it.
Imagine: It’s 6:00 PM on Friday. You are leaving work after another long week. You
promised your spouse you’d be home for dinner at least once this week and this is your
last chance. You pull out of the parking lot on to the main road. Traffic is stopped. It’s a
four lane road and it’s stopped in all directions. You can’t move forward or back. You
can’t change lanes. You are stuck. You are going too slowly so you won’t get to home for
dinner. And just to complete the scene, you just realized you left your cell phone on your
desk. You can’t even call to explain why you’ll be late again.
What’s going on in a major traffic jam? Well first and foremost you are not in control.
Most people get very frustrated. Do you know that a recent study I just made up shows
that 58% of the American population feels frustrated everyday? Whatever the real
number is, and who cares about statistics, many people are frustrated everyday. They are
stuck in life traffic. They can’t get to where they want to go at the speed they want to get
there. They honk the horn. They shout at the drivers around them. They pound the
steering wheel or do the life equivalents of those behaviors, like acting out to get
attention, like being abusive to others, like exploding with rage. Or they suppress it all
and like a great writer once said, they lead lives of quiet desperation. Sound like anyone
you know? Sound like the way you want to live your life? Who said that anyway?
Are you enthusiastic, and excited about what you have to do each day or do too many days suck?
A. Can I just sleep the day away and skip all the crap?
B. Just gettn' by.
C. Hey, most days are pretty good, ya know.
D. I can't wait to get out of bed in the morning and get started.
How do you feel when you are doing what you do everyday?
A. This sucks
B. Just doin' what I got to do to get by
C. Most days, I'm cool.
D. Love my job, wouldn't do anything else
Total
Scoring: After answering all the questions, score each answer using the scale below.
A = 1, B=3, C = 6, D = 10
Total up the score and find your life on the Suckiness Scale
72- 80 means you think most of your world rocks, but do you have Life by the Balls?
61-71 means you think you have a significant amount of suckiness in your life and you really
ought to Grab Life by the Balls to make it even better.
49 - 59 means you think most of life sucks and you need to Grab Life by the Balls.
48 and below, Dude, time to get a grip. You need this book now. Read faster.
Only you can take and score the suckiness test for yourself. Only you can decide
if your life sucks or if you have life by the balls. This is not about how others see you; it’s
about how you see yourself, about how you feel about your life. You can be President of
the United States and life can suck. (I’d go so far as to say if you are President then life
probably sucks pretty bad.) You can be the CEO of a large corporation and not have life
by the balls. On the other side, you can be sweeping floors in the white house or in the
corridors of corporate power and have life by the balls. It’s all about how YOU feel about
your life. I’ve know doctors and lawyers, people we normally assume are doing what
they want, when they want, who wished everyday they were doing something else. The
doctor wanted to be a professional photographer and the lawyer wanted to get out of
doing divorce cases because in the end, nobody was happy. She was tired of the
negativity. Neither changed what they were doing because they had invested too much
time and too many years to change once they figured out they didn’t want to do what they
went to school for. Their education and experience had them by the balls. I know many
senior managers at companies, people in positions that others hope to ascend to, who
dread getting out of bed and going to work every day. Most of them continue to do that
because they have so many years in don’t want to jeopardize their retirement benefits.
Their pensions have them by the naughty bits. Is that how you want to feel everyday?
Being rich does not mean you have life by the balls either. It’s not about what you
have, not about what you’ve accumulated. It’s about how you feel about what you have.
We could go on for days about rich and famous people who wind up in alcohol and drug
rehab. Why to they need drugs or booze? They are rich beyond most of our dreams. They
are recognized everywhere they go. They have the homes, the cars, the yachts. They go to
the best resorts, and go on the coolest vacations. They get married and divorced over and
over. They do drugs and crash their cars. They wind up on the cover of tabloids doing
stupid things.
As I’ve said, you are the only judge of who is controlling you life. No external
appearance can signal the answer. It’s totally about what you feel when you lie awake at
night.
I could make up another study but that was only cute once, so let me say that I
believe that most people do not have life by the balls. I believe from my experience
talking to people in all walks of life that most people are just getting by or even worse,
really hate some portion of their life. YET, they do nothing to change it, Why?
OK, let’s do this again. Do you want to grab life by the balls? If you answered
yes, then you want to be master of your own fate, want to control the events in your life,
you want to be the ball grabber not the grabee. You are making a choice. Your choice
also has consequences. You are either in control of you life already or at least working
hard to be in control of your life or you are some degree of miserable. There are few
things worse than wanting to control your own life and not being able to. If that describes
you, if you want to have life by the balls but it either has you by your delicate parts or
you are locked in a mutual gripping, then I hope to give you some insight about taking
control.
So again, our working principle is either you have life by the balls for life has you
by the balls. Either you are in control of your life, or your life is in charge of you. What
I’m here to share is how you can get a grip.
So, are you with me? Are you ready to grab life by the balls and take charge of
your life? Here we go!
Sounds easy? So why do most people live, what’s the expression again, “live lives of
quite desperation.” Because life has them by the balls and they either don’t know how to
break that grip or they know how but choose not to for any number of reasons. Bad news,
after today you can’t say you don’t know how. I just told you. Now what’s your excuse?
Now we’ve come to the crux of the matter, the core, the essence of the issue, the meat
and potatoes, I’m running out of clichés here so fill in our own expression for getting to
the good stuff, the _________________________. Do you want to be in control of your
life or do you want to give that control to others? Sounds like an easy question when I put
it that way doesn’t it? It’s not random that I choose to use the image of grabbing life by
the balls. It’s quite on purpose. I thought long and hard about it before coming to this
graphic metaphor. Besides the fact that I’m trying to shock your sensibilities into paying
attention, it’s also hard to say you would rather be in the grip then to take things into your
own hands.
Life
Chapter 2
Who do you think you are to Grab Life by the Balls?
The starting point to grabbing life by the balls is knowing who you are. This chapter
focuses on that. It’s my experience that most people struggle with this step. I’ll bet that if
I asked you at a party, “Who are you?” Most of you would tell me your name and what
you do for a living. BORING! If pressed for more detail you might go on to tell me you
are also a mother, a father, son, uncle, sister. And if you are really outgoing you might
tell me about your hobbies or the activities you enjoy. People, these are the roles you
perform and the things you do. They are not who you are. You perform those roles
because of who you are. You enjoy those activities because of who you are. I in no way
mean to belittle the roles we all play or the activities we enjoy. If asked, I would tell you
that I am a writer and speaker. I am a husband and father. I scuba dive, ski and backpack.
My family is my first priority in life to the degree that it’s not fair to call the next item on
the list number 2. It’s more like, number 1- husband and father and next is number 25,
writer & speaker.
But still husband and father is not who I am. It’s because of who I am that I am a
father. You choose the roles you perform because of who you are. You choose the
activities you enjoy because of who you are. This works in the inverse of what most
people say.
Now you can say I’m splitting hairs here but I really believe this distinction is critical.
The roles we perform change as the years pass. The activities we enjoy change over time.
If I am defined by my job, who am I if I get laid off because there are moving the jobs to
China? I’ll bet most of you know someone who was completely lost when they either
retired or lost their job. Some people so completely identify themselves with what they
do for a living that they are literally lost when they lose their job. How many people do
we know who retire and then die in short order? The same is true of people who define
who they are by their family ties. If I am defined by family roles, what am I when my
parents pass on, my marriage ends or my daughter moves away? Many of us fall into this
trap but it is still a trap no matter how many of us are in it together. I hope it’s clear that I
am NOT saying putting a priority on family and career is a bad thing. It’s just that they
are not who you are.
So if we are not the roles we perform or the activities we perform, who are we? How
do we describe the essence of ourselves?
Beliefs are the things you are confident are true whether or not you have evidence
to support it. Our beliefs drive our behavior. Some of our beliefs are very clear to
us. We are well aware if we have a belief in a higher power. We are well aware if
we believe that smoking causes cancer. Some, I’d say, most of our beliefs are not
so clear or obvious to us but they still have a huge impact on our lives.
Values are similar to beliefs. Values are the attributes and subjects we judge to be
desirable. Examples of values would include peace, harmony, love, health,
honesty, or freedom. We all have values but most of us have not taken the time to
identify and record our values.
Abilities are the actions, both mental and physical we are good at. Mental abilities
include things like being mechanically inclined, being good at math, having a
good memory, bring able to communicate well. Physical abilities are things like:
being able to dance (clearly an ability I do not have), having good hand eye
coordination (no again), running fast (strike three), etc.
Feelings are our emotions, the inner sensation we get in different circumstances.
Example of feelings would include: joy, sadness, love, regret, guilt and optimism.
You have to identify and prioritize your beliefs, values, abilities, and feelings to know
who you are. And remember knowing who you are is absolutely a prerequisite for
grabbing life by the balls. Aristotle or one of those other smart Greek guys said
something like, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Of course he said it in Greek
but you don’t want me to try to pronounce it in the original. I
butcher my native language badly enough. “The unexamined life
is not worth living.” If we accept that as wisdom that has
survived the ages, then that means to have a life that is worth
living you must examine what you do, examine who you are.
I’m sure now that I have put it so eloquently, quoted minds
greater that mine, made such a strong convincing case you are
thinking, “Yes, yes, I am ready. I am ready to examine my life,
to figure out who I really am so I can figure out what I want so I
can grab life by the balls. Please tell me oh wise sage, how the
heck to do that?”
Well, I don’t know. Oh, look, we’re out of time. Gotta go...
But seriously folks, it can be done. Beliefs, values and feelings can be hard to identify the
first time but I’ll get you there one step at a time. Start from what you know.
Exercise 2-1
A. Write down all your roles. List things like employee, boss, business owner,
softball coach, mother, daughter, voter / non-voter, parishioner / agnostic.
B. Write down all the activities you enjoy. Things like sports - tennis, golf, or
softball; like outdoor activities – skiing, hiking, or camping; or anything else – read,
go to movies, or travel.
Don’t worry about trying to separate roles from activities. Let’s see, I coach little
league. Is that a role or an activity? NOT IMPORTANT! Just pick one for the love of
Mike. (Where did that expression come from? Who is Mike and why do I want his love?
But, I digress, again. I promise never to do that again.) What was I saying, oh yea, list
your values and beliefs in any order that it comes to you. List them in any level of detail
that works for you. There is no right answer, there is no wrong answer. Just start listing.
Your lists should be no less than 20 items each. That’s the one rule on all the lists you are
going to generate. Twenty is the absolute minimum. Any less than that and you are just
not trying.
Oh, wait I lied, like that’s unusual, there is another rule. You must record the lists in
some manner. Most of us will write or type the lists but written words don’t make it for
everyone. You could record it on tape or digitally. You could draw pictures or cut
pictures out magazines. Do what works for you but you may not just keep it in your head.
You do that and I will personally hunt you down whereever you hide. No, really there is a
reason for this. It has to be real, tangible and you are going to have to refer back to these
lists.
Because I’m such a nice guy, in the appendix (that’s the section in the back of the
book) there are templates for all the exercises. You can just rip these pages out and write
on them. If in the ripping process you destroy them or some how mess up the book, well
then sorry, you’ll have to go buy another book. My publisher and I will both send you a
lovely hand written note of thanks for buying two books.
If you are like me and can’t read your own hand writing so you would rather type
your lists, then I can help you there too. Go to my web site, www.XXXX.com and down
load the FREE exercise templates there.
While you are there you can buy all the cool Grab Life by the Balls chotskis. I
really don’t have any stuff to sell but the templates are there. There are also opportunities
to interact with other people who are trying to grab life by the balls.
See I’ll even help, Examples of Roles We All Play in Life. You can thank me later.
Use for Exercise 2-1
Example Activities for exercise 2-1. Oh, come on people. Do I have to do everything for
you? Think about what you like to do with you time.
C. Strike the unimportant items off the lists. Eliminate the trivial ones. Then try to
loosely prioritize the remaining items.
Again, don’t make a big deal out of trying to rank the top five if you find yourself
struggling. The exact order is not important but having a good sense of which ones are
important is important.
D. For each role and each activity, define how you want to be whether you live up to
your ideal is not important at this point, just list how you want to be for each role.
For the items remaining on both lists, the important roles and activities, think about
how you want to be, how you want to behave in each of those roles.
Example, Husband and father are tied for first place for me. I want to be a good
husband and father. How does a good father behave? How does a good husband behave?
Emotionally, I would be loving and affectionate, supportive and nurturing, and patient.
I’d spend time, listen, and give wise counsel. (OK, so my family is in trouble there.)
Physically, I’d protect my family from harm, provide shelter and food. (Good thing you
bought this book.) Make sure you could define what each of the items on your list means.
For example, loving and supportive means I tell my wife and daughter I love them, I help
them with the things they want to do like help my daughter find the right college to
attend. You could write down that definition for extra credit but at least make sure you
can define each attribute if I were to ask. And I just might.
Summary of Exercise 2-1
A. Write down all your roles. List things like employee, boss, business owner, softball
coach, mother, daughter, voter / non-voter, parishioner / agnostic.
B. Write down all the activities you enjoy. Things like sports - tennis, golf, or softball;
like outdoor activities – skiing, hiking, or camping; or anything else – read, go to movies,
or travel.
C. Strike the unimportant items off the lists. Eliminate the trivial ones. Then try to loosely
prioritize the remaining items.
D. For each role and activity, define how you want to be whether you live up to your
ideal is not important at this point, just list how you want to be for each role.
Here’s an example of what you should have at the end of exercise 2-1.
Beliefs are the things you are confident are true whether or not you have evidence
to support it.
Look at what you do, your activities, and look at your roles. These are the places
where you spend your time. You must have some belief and must value something to
spend your time on these roles and activities.
Again as example, examining my roles of father and husband, family member and
friend I saw a pattern emerge. This led me to discover I had a value I called Love. Here’s
how I stated my value after thinking about how I wanted to behave as a father and
husband, family member and friend.
Love is the reason for everything else. It is the only indispensable thing in my life.
Love is the dominate emotion that I feel; it is the first and last thought of my day. I
love my wife and daughter unconditionally. I love our extended family and friends
in thought and show it in deed..
Exercise 2-2
Look at your prioritized roles and activities, identify your values and write a short
defining statement for each of those values.
Hint: Don’t tell anyone but there is a cheater list of values and beliefs on the next few
pages to help you get started. Shhhhhh
Topics for Values and Beliefs for Exercise 2-2
Well, if you have been good little busy beavers, you have written down your
beliefs, values, abilities, and feelings. Now it’s time to let them age awhile like a fine
wine, in a dark cellar, on new American oak. Oh, wait I’m getting carried away again.
(One of my activities is drinking good wine. Could you tell?) Set it aside for a couple of
days then go back and read the lists again. Does it feel right? Have you described
yourself? You may need to make some changes. That’s OK. Keep working the lists
you’ve created until you recognize yourself in the words.
There is one last step in getting to know who you are. Ever heard of an elevator
speech? An elevator speech is what you would say to describe something to someone
during the course of a short elevator ride. You have 30-45 seconds to explain the topic. I
have a variation on that theme. Remember I started talking about being able to tell
someone who you are when you first met them at a party or, in my case, in some sleazy
bar. So I’ll call this the drunken slurring speech. No wait, that’s no good. How about the
party introduction speech? Based on all the work you’ve done, describe you core beliefs,
values, abilities and feeling to someone in 30-45 seconds. When you can do that you
really know who you are.