One great thing about the content created by Ball Team Enterprise LLC is that we offer practical developmental lessons from a unique and interesting perspective.
Our up coming book, Thug Characteristic: Teach Your Kids to Thug or Not to Thug, Is content that is designed to help kids develop into the best people they can be (with their parents’ help of course). The characteristics outlined in this book are some of the ones I saw over and over again in thugs, from street thugs to the thugs on prison yards. The following is from the introduction to our new and valuable book:
Introduction
Parents teach their kids to be thugs or not to be thugs. There are, what I call, sets of characteristics that are common among thugs just as there are characteristics common among people who aren’t thugs. Parents, either knowingly or accidentally, teach their kids thug characteristics.
Back in the day parents respected their kids. They had enough respect for their kids to shelter them from certain things. I can recall my momma, aunts etc. using a different set of language and behaviors around us kids than they did with each other. For example, they didn’t curse in front of us or do adult things in our presence. If we did hear them cursing we were meddling or we were in trouble. If we were meddling we would receive a lesson about staying in a child’s place. Now-a-days parents don’t hide a thing from their kids. They curse like sailors in front of them, have adult themed conversations in their presence, and engage in adult behaviors while they are around. Parents, by not giving their kids respect, teach them a characteristic common among thugs: disrespect! They may not have it in their mind to teach their kids to be disrespectful but that’s what they are doing.
My book attempts to outline as many thug characteristics as I could think of. If parents can identify thug characteristics they can deliberately teach their kids not to be thugs; instead teaching them to be the best people they can be, now and in the future.
It is easy to inadvertently teach your kids to be thugs. For example, parents teach their kids’ individualism or selfishness, they spoil their kids, they teach them about fairness, they don’t teach them about money, about history, about a child’s place or about their rights. What parents teach and fail to teach can become a petri dish where thug characteristics and ideologies are allowed to grow into a thug virus that infects their child.
Thugs are selfish and individualistic. Thugs want things quickly and easy just like a spoiled child. When a child who has been spoiled doesn’t get what he wants he acts out and attempts to get what he desires using other methods. These methods may include stealing or throwing a tantrum. The child is practicing behavior that can become thuggery as the child gets older. Thugs only care about themselves and what they want. If it isn’t given to them easily they go out and steal, sell drugs or throw a tantrum and rob someone. Do parents look at the possible negative outcomes of spoiling their children? Probably not.
Thugs seem to have a hard time coming to realize that life isn’t fair. Parents go out of their way to make sure their kids are being treated fairly. The concept of fairness is reinforced in schools, sports, and in the constitution. As we all know life is everything but fair. Living and believing that life is and should be fair only to be met with continuous unfairness can cause people to be angry, jealous, vengeful and many other things including criminal.
Thugs have an incorrect relationship with money because they weren’t taught about money as children. Thugs allow money to make them. They make obtaining money their ultimate life goal, risking their freedom and wellbeing. In addition they use money to fund a cycle of poverty and thuggery.
Thugs repeat history because their parents don’t teach them about history, well they may learn about George Washington and Martin Luther King. If a child and parent had an inkling of the tried and true plan that is in store for him if he turns thug he might think twice and the parents will work twice as hard to keep him or her from that route. Thugging isn’t a new concept nor are the thug irradication plans. 19th century India
Nowadays you see kids acting as if they are grown. You see it in their dress, their speech, and their behaviors. Parents have failed to outline, define, and allow kids to stay in a CHILD’S PLACE. Thugs are often children who don’t know their place as a child and adults who don’t know their place as citizens of a civil society.
Thugs do not know their rights. Many people have been cornered into thugging because they didn’t know their rights. One of my brothers was arrested and found guilty of possession because he didn’t know his fourth amendment rights. Just as he has to obey the law so do the police as they carry out their job. If he would have known his rights he could have fought his case and won, however, because he was unfamiliar he allowed them to illegal search and seize his property, arrest him, and ultimately convict him. Many kids are having their rights violated and being criminalized. Once they begin to understand and know their rights they can combat their criminalization and the criminalization of the areas they live and play.
Something as simple as teaching your kids about respect, consideration, the real world and not handing them everything they ask for can save them from the clutches of the thug life.
This book is about education: parents have to become educated about the characteristics of a thug so they can in turn better educate their children and increase the likely hood of raising a person who adds value to his/herself, their family and society as opposed to raising a thug. We can be accidentally setting our kids up to be a thug. I want to help you purposely set them up to be the best they can be.
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We specialize in mining value from various situations and circumstances to create meaningful lessons and action steps that you can benefit from immediately! Our first eBook, 39 things about life I learned in prison: Turn my mistake into your success is an example of value mined from an interesting situation.
The title of this book describes exactly what it is about. I outline some of the things I learned in prison that relate to aspects of life everyone can experience or will experience. I tell real life stories so you understand how I came to learn the particular lesson I am talking about. For example, I talk about my friend Shorty Lott and how he showed me the true power of laughter.
I met a guy in prison named Shorty Lott. He was about five-two, stocky with a flat top he converted to French braids. He had the coolest walk; it reminded me of those old school players catting down the avenue with their stable in tow. Shorty had the loudest most annoying laugh I’ve ever encountered, which distinguished him from every convict in the prison. It didn’t matter where he was in the dorm or where I was, I could always hear his distinguishable laugh. When I first met him he was a few years into his sentence with over 20 more actual years to go. Despite his situation he was still able to laugh. Laughter was his therapy and I never saw him mad or down trodden I only saw him in the best of spirits. –from 39 things about life I learned in prison: Turn my mistake into your success
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I summarize the chapters with a simple quotable sentence followed by a couple of action steps that will be of value on your personal development journey. Shorty showed me how to maintain my sanity so I could grow in a positive manner. Below are the action steps from the Shorty Lott chapter:
Action
1. Laugh
•Look for the funny, the absurd and the entertainment in things, this is an excuse to laugh. If you have a reason to laugh you will have less reasons to be angry or to cry. When I was shot I had a reason to laugh. It was absurd that I got shot and funny that I didn’t die. I can look back at the incident and die laughing at how goofy my attacker looked running off after he shot me or the look on the undercover police’s face as I fled despite him having given me an order to freeze with his pistol in my face. Keep in mind he watched my entire shooting unfold only to show his face after I am nearly dead and to show it behind a gun, if that isn’t too funny I don’t know what is. It’s as if life is one big comedy, so we might as well laugh.
2. Laugh some more.
•Don’t let the joke be on you turn things around. The people involved in my shooting ultimately had me sent to prison and even attempted to pay someone to kill me. They thought that my prison sentence would be my death sentence. However, I am here stronger than ever. I turned things around and only have reasons to laugh as an expression of my joy and happiness. –from 39 things about life I learned in prison: Turn my mistake into your success
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Our follow up eBook, What I learned in the streets and prison that can help you win at the game of life is another example of extracting lessons from mistakes; lessons that can help others be better and do better. This book is about some of the things I picked up on my journey. I have chapters titled; Man sharpens man, Stick to the script and Everybody plays the fool sometimes. The following is a chapter from the book:
Chapter 10
Stick to the script
In this case the script is your plan- the plan you have created in order to reach your goal. When your goal is in your sights don’t get distracted and deviate from it… stick to it!
In order to stay on track with a plan you must have a plan to begin with.
Your distant environments which may include the economy or laws are things that you can’t control. Your immediate environments, which may include your family or your business, may change as well. Changes in these environments will cause you to make changes to your plans. However, your plan, if effective, should not be disregarded. Parts of your plan may change but not the entire plan itself. You certainly don’t want to abandon a plan that is on the verge of goal attainment.
You may have worked hard for years implementing your plan and your goal is finally about to be realized when you are distracted. Distractions come in various forms like women, get rich quick opportunities and parties. We wait until the last stages of the script to switch it up. It would be different if our plan was ineffective and failing but to deviate from the script when it is about to go down is crazy.
When I got to prison my plan was to stay out of trouble and utilize my time to better myself, increase my knowledge base, gain skills, get a higher education and get my body right. My script entailed reading, studying, going to school, working a job, working out and staying away from all the nonsense that goes on in prison. After more than a decade in prison my plan has worked and I would be a fool to start playing dope dealer, trafficker, moonshiner and killer at this point. I created my script and I stuck to it. I stuck to it even though I was put in a position early in my prison stay where I really gave considerable thought to killing a couple of guys who jumped me. I had the knives, the anger, approval from the prison culture and the history to carry out my thought. However, my script was too important to deviate from it.
How to win: have game
You win by:
1. Creating a plan
2. Working your plan
I think we all need to write a script and stick to it as long as it is effective. The closer we get to the finish line the more we need to focus on our goal and work our plan. I see guys get out of prison, stay on probation and parole for a long time, then wait until they are almost done with their obligation and jack it off by getting high on drugs or getting back in the dope game. If your plan is working, stick to it. –from What I learned in the streets and prison that can help you win at the game of life.
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