Why We Exclude Without Realizing It

Daddy Ball Was Never About Baseball

"The real game is almost never the one happening on the field. The real game is the one people are playing inside themselves."

Most of us can remember a moment when we felt excluded.

Maybe you weren't invited to the meeting.

Maybe everyone else seemed to know something you didn't.

Maybe your ideas were ignored while someone else's were celebrated.

Maybe you walked into a room and instantly felt like you didn't belong.

Those moments hurt.

For years, I believed those experiences were simply about rejection. I thought someone had decided I wasn't important enough to include.

Today, I see something very different.

After decades of observing people under pressure—in families, workplaces, founder-led companies, and mergers and acquisitions—I no longer believe exclusion is usually the real story.

I believe attachment is.

And once you recognize that, you begin seeing human behavior through an entirely different lens.

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It Started on a Little League Baseball Field

Chapter 7 of The Truth Bubbles Up is called Daddy Ball.

People often assume it's a chapter about youth baseball.

It isn't.

Baseball is simply the backdrop.

The real story is about identity.

As my son began playing competitive baseball, I found myself observing something I couldn't quite explain.

Parents formed invisible circles.

Information flowed to some people but not others.

Certain families naturally belonged.

Others quietly stood outside the fence.

At first, I experienced those moments as deeply personal.

I remember arriving at games only to discover my son was out of town because another parent told me.

I remember learning he had gone to an Astros game from a complete stranger.

I remember being invited to dinner after practice only to discover the location had changed—and no one had told us.

Those moments hurt.

But today, they teach me something entirely different.

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Systems Reveal Themselves Through Small Moments

One of the greatest lessons I've learned is this:

Healthy systems communicate.

Unhealthy systems create information gaps.

When outsiders know more than insiders, pay attention.

That's rarely random.

Communication tells us a great deal about the health of a family, a leadership team, or an organization.

As someone who practices Human Diligence, I pay close attention to those seemingly insignificant moments.

They're diagnostic.

Most people look for dramatic conflict.

I look for subtle patterns.

Who receives information?

Who doesn't?

Who gets interrupted?

Who is consistently overlooked?

Who is carrying the emotional burden for everyone else?

These small observations often reveal much larger dynamics.

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Exclusion Is Often Unintentional

Here's something that surprised me over the years.

Most people don't wake up in the morning thinking,

"How can I exclude someone today?"

Instead, they're protecting something.

Their identity.

Their role.

Their status.

Their certainty.

Their place inside the group.

When people become attached to an identity, their behavior begins protecting that identity—often without conscious awareness.

That's why exclusion appears in so many different environments.

It isn't limited to sports.

It shows up in:

• Families

• Friend groups

• Corporate leadership teams

• Volunteer organizations

• Churches

• Mergers and acquisitions

• Founder-led businesses

The setting changes.

The human pattern doesn't.

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Why Pressure Reveals the Pattern

Pressure has a way of exposing what normally stays hidden.

When everything feels safe, people often appear collaborative.

But introduce uncertainty…

A promotion.

A merger.

A leadership transition.

A family conflict.

A championship game.

Suddenly, attachments become visible.

People begin protecting positions.

Information becomes selective.

Conversations happen behind closed doors.

Belonging becomes conditional.

Pressure didn't create the pattern.

It simply revealed what was already there.

That's why I often say:

Pressure tells the truth.

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The Hidden Cost to Children

One moment from Daddy Ball has stayed with me for years.

After another painful experience of being left out, my youngest son looked at me and said:

"Don't cry, Mama. When I grow up, I'm going to be a lawyer and fix all of this."

At the time, I thought he was comforting me.

Today, I hear something else.

A child trying to repair a system he didn't create.

Children do this all the time.

Some become peacemakers.

Some become perfectionists.

Some become comedians.

Some disappear into the background.

They're adapting to the emotional environment around them.

Many adults are still carrying those same adaptive patterns decades later.

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What This Means for Leaders

This lesson extends far beyond childhood.

Inside organizations, exclusion quietly erodes trust.

Not because someone openly says,

"You don't belong."

But because people begin asking themselves questions like:

"Why wasn't I included?"

"Did I do something wrong?"

"What am I missing?"

That uncertainty drains energy.

Innovation slows.

Communication weakens.

Psychological safety disappears.

I've seen companies spend enormous amounts of money trying to fix culture while overlooking the invisible human patterns creating the problem.

You can't solve what you can't see.

That's why Human Diligence matters.

Financial diligence tells you about the business.

Legal diligence tells you about the contracts.

Human Diligence reveals the invisible attachments quietly shaping leadership, communication, trust, and enterprise value.

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Curiosity Changes Everything

One of the greatest shifts in my own life came when I stopped asking,

"Why are they excluding me?"

…and started asking,

"What identity might they be protecting?"

That question doesn't excuse harmful behavior.

But it creates understanding.

Understanding creates choices.

And choices create freedom.

The moment we stop making every painful experience about our worth, we begin observing the human patterns underneath it.

That's where healing begins.

That's also where better leadership begins.

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The Truth Beneath the Story

People often ask me why I wrote The Truth Bubbles Up.

The answer is simple.

The stories themselves aren't the point.

The patterns are.

Because once you recognize a pattern in one place, you'll begin seeing it everywhere.

The baseball field was simply where I first learned to observe.

Today, I help leaders, founders, and organizations do the very same thing.

Not to judge people.

But to understand them.

Because the real game is almost never the one happening in front of us.

The real game is the one people are playing inside themselves.

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About the Author

Kathie Owen is a private consultant specializing in Human Diligence™ for founder-led and private equity-backed companies.

She helps leaders recognize the hidden behavioral patterns that traditional due diligence often misses—including attachment, communication breakdowns, executive misalignment, and culture risk.

Through speaking, writing, and consulting, Kathie teaches leaders how pressure reveals the truth about people, teams, and organizations so they can make better decisions before problems become expensive.

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#HumanPatternsUnderPressure #HumanDiligence #LeadershipPsychology #ExecutivePresence #OrganizationalCulture #Belonging #Exclusion #Leadership #EmotionalIntelligence #FounderLed #PrivateEquity #WorkplaceCulture #PsychologicalSafety

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Read More Articles from Kathie

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Transcript

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly felt like everyone else knew something you didn't? Maybe everyone was laughing about something you weren't invited to. Maybe the meeting happened without you. Maybe everyone had the matching coffee mug. Maybe everyone knew where dinner was except you. It hurts, but today I wanna suggest something that completely changed how I see these moments. I no longer think exclusion is the real story. I think attachment is, and once you see that, you'll start recognizing the same pattern everywhere. Welcome to the Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast. My name is Kathie Owen, and I study what pressure reveals about people. I help leaders, founders, and private equity firms recognize the invisible human patterns that financial statements never show. I call it human diligence. One of the patterns I see over and over again is what happens when people become attached to an identity, because attachment quietly changes behavior. It changes communication. It changes leadership. It changes families. It changes companies. And today, I want to show you one of the first places I ever saw that pattern. It wasn't a boardroom. It was on a Little League baseball field. Today comes from the chapter seven of my book, The Truth Bubbles Up. The chapter is called Daddy Ball. The names have been changed to protect everyone's privacy, but the human patterns are exactly as they happened. If you'd like to read the entire story, I'll put a link to the book in the description and show notes below. But even if you've never watched a baseball game, I think you're gonna recognize yourself somewhere in this story Chapter seven, Daddy Ball. "Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand," Leo Durocher. I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember. My father loved sports, especially football, but baseball became my game. Some of my earliest memories involve dusty Little League fields, snow cones, long summer evenings, and chasing friends around the ballpark while our brothers played baseball. Most people think baseball is boring. I understand why. If you're only watching the ball, it can be. But baseball was never just about the ball. Every pitch matters. Every decision matters. Every situation matters. The game rewards patience, observation, and understanding patterns. Looking back, that probably explains why I loved it so much. Long before I studied psychology, long before I worked in corporate wellness, long before I advised leaders, I was already studying human behavior from the bleachers. I just didn't know it yet. When Kevin started playing Little League, it quickly became obvious that he had a gift. He was only seven years old, but he looked completely natural on a baseball field, like he had been born with a glove on his hand. I was amazed and excited. I thought I was entering the world of youth baseball. Instead, I entered a world I would later call Daddy Ball. Daddy Ball has very little to do with baseball. Daddy Ball happens when adults become more invested in what the game means about them than it means for the child playing it. The stated purpose is baseball. The real game is identity, status, recognition, belonging, control. I didn't understand that at first. I learned quickly. This particular league was legendary. Several teams had advanced all the way to the Little League World Series. Many parents treated youth baseball as a pathway to something bigger, scholarships, recognition, success, pride. Some lived through their children so completely that it became difficult to tell where the child ended and the parent began. Kendall fit perfectly into that environment. Ironically, he had always hated baseball. When my brothers invited him to Astros games, he complained constantly about how boring it was. Suddenly, however, he loved the sport, or maybe he loved what the sport represented. He became a coach, his wife became the team mom, and before long, I started seeing familiar patterns emerge. The first clue appeared when Kevin's first game of the season. Every mother on the team carried a matching canvas bag embroidered with baseball mom. They had all been given as gifts. Every mother except one, me. At the time, I felt excluded. Today, I see something else. Systems reveal themselves quickly. The bags weren't really bags, they were signals. Who belongs? Who doesn't? Who is included? Who isn't? Every group has them. Corporate cultures, families, friend groups, leadership teams. Little League was no different. What fascinated me wasn't the exclusion, it was how normal everyone acted. That's another pattern I've noticed throughout my life. The longer people live inside a system, the less they notice its rules. One Easter weekend, I arrived at one of Kobe's games, ready to watch him play. I couldn't find him. A mother I barely knew approached me. "Are you looking for Kobe?" she asked. I nodded. "He's not here. They're out of town for Easter." I stood there stunned, not because he was out of town, because no one had told me. A stranger knew more about my son's whereabouts than I did. At the time, I left in tears. Today, I see something different. Communication failures reveal a great deal about a system. The people closest to the situation weren't communicating. A stranger became the bridge. The pattern would show up repeatedly throughout my life, at baseball fields, in families, and eventually in workplaces. One season ended with a large awards ceremony. Hundreds of children crowded the field. Parents lined the sidelines. I searched for Kevin among the sea of uniforms. One father approached me. "Are you looking for Kevin?" he asked. I nodded. "He's at the Astros game with Kendall, watching Roger Clemens pitch." Again, no one had told me. Again, a stranger knew more than I did. Again, I drove home in tears. For years, I thought those moments were about exclusion. Now, I think they were about ownership. Who gets to claim the experience? Who gets proximity to success? Who gets the photograph? Who gets the story? The pattern is far bigger than baseball. It shows up everywhere human beings attach their identity to achievement, and nowhere was that more obvious than with Kevin. By twelve years old, he had become one of the best players in the state. The baseball world revolved around tournaments, travel, private coaching, summer leagues, all-star teams, endless practices. Kendall invested heavily in his development. The best coaches, the best opportunities, the best exposure, and Kevin thrived. He genuinely loved the game. That mattered because many children trapped in daddy ball don't. Kevin did. Baseball lived inside of him the way psychology lived inside of me, the way kindness lived inside of Kobe, the way teaching lived inside my father. Some passions are simply part of a person's nature. One summer, Kevin's team advanced to the state championship in Waco. The winner would move to the Little League World Series. The game was televised on ESPN. My parents came to watch. We sat down the left field line because I was never able to sit in the parent section. Not with the other families, not with the crowd, just together, watching baseball, watching Kevin. During the game, Kevin hit not one, but two home runs. It was one of the proudest moments of my life for Kevin. Then something happened that I still remember. The television cameras focused on the family section. The announcer began identifying everyone. "There's Kendall, his dad, Kobe, his brother, and Kathie, his mom." Yet it was not me sitting next to Kendall. It was Jenny. The announcers also noticed something else. We were all K.O. Kendall, Kathie, Kevin, Kobe. They joked about whether that had been intentional. It had. For years, K.O. had been more than initials. It was part of our family identity. Sitting there on that hillside listening to strangers describe my family, I realized something. Families can change. Marriages can end. Narratives can be rewritten, but some truths remain stubbornly intact. I was still Kevin's mother. I was still Kobe's mother, and no amount of conflict could change that. And for one brief moment, reality matched reality. No politics, no narratives, no competition, just truth. Kathie, his mom. I didn't realize how much I needed to hear that until I heard it. We lost the game. Oddly enough, I was relieved. Had we won, the entire circus would've moved to Pennsylvania, and by then, I was exhausted by everything surrounded the game that wasn't baseball. Because the longer I watched youth baseball, the less interested I became in the game itself. I was fascinated by the adults. The children were playing baseball. The adults were playing something else entirely. One evening after practice, another lesson arrived. A parent invited the boys and me to dinner after the game. I was excited, not because of the food, because I thought maybe I might finally have a chance to connect with some of the other families. After practice ended, we waited in the parking lot. No one arrived. Eventually, hungry and confused, we left, and we pulled into another restaurant nearby. Immediately, the boys recognized all their teammates' cars. Everyone was already inside. The location had changed. No one told us. Kevin started crying. I felt the tears coming, too. Not because of dinner, because exclusion hurts. Whether you're eight years old or 40- I eventually pulled the truck over to calm down. The boys sat quietly, then we drove home. As I parked in the garage, Kevin stormed into the house. Koby stayed behind. The sweet boy looked at me and said something I will never forget. Don't cry, Mama. When I grow up, I'm gonna be a lawyer and fix all of this." I smiled through the tears. Then I told him the truth. "Koby, by the time you're grown up, all of this will be over." At the time, I thought I was comforting him. Today, I hear something else, a child trying to repair a system he did not create. Children do that all the time. They carry burdens that don't belong to them. They try to heal conflicts they didn't cause. They become peacemakers, protectors, fixers, not because they should, because they love the people involved. Looking back, Daddy Ball taught me something profound. Adults often attach their identity to things that were never meant to carry that weight. Children, titles, teams, roles, success, status, and when they do, everyone around them feels the pressure, especially the children. The baseball field taught me far more than baseball. It taught me to watch human behavior. It taught me to notice systems. It taught me to recognize belonging, exclusion, status, and attachment. Most importantly, it taught me that the real game is almost never the one happening on the field. The real game is the one people are playing inside themselves. All right, that's chapter seven, Daddy Ball, from The Truth Bubbles Up by Kathie Owen, and there are several lessons I wanna unpack from this episode with you today. Lesson number one, the bags were not about the bags. They were membership badges. Every system creates symbols. Some are intentional, and some are not. Companies have them. Families have them. Leadership teams have them. Friend groups have them. They answer one silent question: Who belongs? Lesson number two, people rarely wake up trying to exclude someone. Instead, they're protecting something. Maybe it's status, maybe it's certainty, maybe it's their role, maybe their identity. That's a very different way to look at human behavior Lesson number three: communication reveals the health of the system. One of my favorite lines in this chapter is, "A stranger knew more about my son than I did." That isn't simply poor communication, that's diagnostic information. That is human diligence. Whenever outsiders know more than insiders, pay attention, because something underneath the surface is not functioning well Lesson number four: pressure makes attachment visible. Nobody notices attachment until pressure arrives. Competition, promotion, inheritance, mergers, divorce, sports, leadership succession. That's when identity starts protecting itself. That's why pressure is such an incredible teacher Lesson number five, children often become emotional caretakers My youngest son saying, I'm gonna grow up and become a lawyer and fix all of this," that wasn't just a sweet moment. That was a child trying to repair a system. Children do this constantly. Some become peacemakers, some become comedians, some become perfectionists, some become invisible. They aren't choosing personalities, they are adapting Lesson number six. This is why I teach human diligence. Financial diligence finds numbers. Legal diligence finds contracts. Human diligence finds invisible attachments. Those attachments eventually become conflict, communication breakdown, leadership struggles, culture problems, and enterprise risk. Long before the numbers change, the people already have You know what's interesting is I've experienced versions of this pattern many, many, many different times in my life. I've seen it in corporate leadership. I've seen it in relationships. I've seen it in business. I've seen it in mergers and acquisitions. I've seen it in volunteer organizations. Different people, different settings, same human pattern. That's one of the reasons why I wrote this book The stories aren't the point, the patterns are So here's what I hope you take away today. If you've ever been excluded, I know how much that hurts. But what if you become curious instead of defensive? What identity might someone else be protecting? What attachment might they be carrying? That doesn't excuse hurtful behavior, but it changes the way we understand it, and understanding human behavior gives us choices. The moment we stop making everything personal, we begin seeing patterns, and once you see the pattern, you are no longer trapped inside of it. You are observing it, and that's where freedom begins. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.