Larry Winget - Grow a pair: how to stop being a victim and take back your life, your business, and your sanity

Writing the acknowledgments page always makes me feel a lot like the people who receive Academy Awards. They get their Oscar and then in the postacceptance speech interview backstage they always talk about all the people they forgot to mention. Usually it is their spouse they forget. I am not going to let that happen. I am going to begin by thanking my wife, Rose Mary. I couldnt do what I do without her support. She reads and rereads and works hard to make sure that what I write is readable long before my editor gets the manuscript. But more than that, she puts up with me. Believe me, thats not an easy thing to do. Because I have a pair, a big pair, I speak up often and loudly. For a sweet, quiet peacemaker, that can be embarrassing. But she loves me and believes in me, so she puts up with it. Thank you, Rose Mary.

A few years back, a television producer asked me what brought me to the place I am at, with such a strong set of beliefs of right and wrong and honesty and integrity and the rest of the principles I espouse. It was an easy answer. I told him I was raised right. And I was. So thanks to Mom and Dad, Dorothy and Henry Winget.

Thanks to my boys, Tyler and Patrick, who remind me that I am not Larry Winget, that guy on TV, but just a regular guy from Muskogee, Oklahoma, who did good and who is still a dork a good part of the time. They are my barometer for keeping it real.

Thanks to my literary agent, Jay Mandel, with William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, for believing in what I do.

Thanks to my friends at Gotham Books: Bill Shinker, my publisher, along with Lisa Johnson and Beth Parker, who make sure the book gets out there and that people know about it. But most of all, thanks to Jessica Sindler, my editor, who spent a lot of time going back and forth with me, making sure that my words communicated with the reader in the best way possible. I know I can be a frustrating technological dinosaur to work with, and she patiently made it all work.

ALSO BY LARRY WINGET

Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life

Its Called Work for a Reason!

Youre Broke Because You Want to Be

People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It!

No Time for Tact

Your Kids Are Your Own Fault

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Copyright 2013 by Larry Winget

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Winget, Larry.

Grow a pair : how to stop being a victim and take back your life,

your business, and your sanity / Larry Winget.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-698-13861-2

1. Assertiveness (Psychology) 2. Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title.

BF575.A85W56 2013

158.2dc23

2013016263

Art by Shane Clester

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

I dedicate this book to the men and women of the United States military, and all those who serve us proudly in our police and fire departments across our great country.

It is better to live one day as a tiger than to live for a thousand years as a sheep.

Tibetan Proverb