Well Intentioned Dragons:
Slaying Their Influence…
in Your Life (Part 2/3)
Miss part one? Check last weeks Coffee with Kevin Hogan…
What would you expect to hear or experience with someone who is attempting to stop your progress, yet they seem to have somewhat positive outcomes in store for you?
They allow you to give up…
“I believe in you.” Hmmm…
Keeping you from leaving their level….
“Everything is fine.” Rarely…
They take more than they give…
“Do it tomorrow.” Virtually always bad suggestion…
The dragon believes they are entitled.
They really often believe what they are saying to you that is keeping you down. They often believe it’s truly in your best interest. They tell you they are excited that you are doing what you love and that you have a direction in life.
Your standard of living is about to dwarf their level and they don’t seem to mind. But is it true? Can they be real with you even if they wanted to? They certainly seem to love you and who knows, they probably do.
And this is just a few ways well intentioned dragons talk with you. and what is the symptom from being under the influence of the well intentioned dragon?
They bring you down without being there to help you up.
Tell me what sounds familiar here…
We begin with A Day in the Life.
There are dragons, as well as well intentioned dragons everywhere.
Your story begins here:
You work all day, six days a week at the office. Today…you just stayed 45 minutes late. Several of your employees gave you funny looks when you left at 5:45 instead of the more typical 6:30.
But, it’s Friday and you have your kids overnight but you did promise your kids you’d take them to see a movie. You quickly head over to your new digs, get out of your work clothes, shower, change into the most casual and current stuff you have in the closet.
Now it’s 7:00. You think, “show starts at 7:45. We’ll make it.” You check the condition of the house. Still perfect from yesterday. Double check the fridge. Lots of good kid food in there. At 10 and 12 years old, you wonder if there are too many carbs in the fridge. There are. You aren’t thrilled with it, but the alternative would be worse.
The ex-spouse/partner/roommate has company coming tonight at your old place for a party starting at about 7:30. Thankfully you didn’t get an invite. You never understood why everyone is late to a party. They just are. You do the mental math and to have the kids home to their other home you need to leave your place at 10:40. It works. The party though, will likely continue after you’ve dropped the kids off at your old home after the movie and pizza at your new place.
“Don’t like the kids being around a bunch of drunk people. They say and do weird sh…” You say it clearly to the windshield wipers.
Well that’s why you have the new place. Not only is the world not a perfect place, it borders on ridiculous, stupid, irresponsible, irrational…which is why you have a new place.
You don’t bother going to the door, you just text as you drive in the old driveway. “Daddy is here!”
The kids were actually looking out the window. That’s pretty cool, probably, you think.
“Daddy, are we still going to see the Guardians of the Galaxy?”
“Yep, let’s go guys, we’re late!”
And off you go. The show is great. Popcorn over buttered. Idiots in front of you have their cell phones on in the middle of the show. You wonder why they let these people live…er…allow them into the show.
Getting back to your place, the kids are giving their reviews of the movie to you and texting about it to the other house, to no response.
Your 10 year old takes the pizza order and the 12 year old calls the place for delivery. 40 minutes. The kids won’t be close to getting home at 11. It will be midnight. Not a big deal, tomorrow is Saturday.
Pizza is devoured as none of the three of you have eaten since noon, making it about 10 hours and change. Kids are happy. After the late dinner, everyone helps clean up.
“Gotta get you guys to the other place now.”
“No Daddy, we want to stay here. There’s going to be an adult party there.”
“It’s not my turn to have you guys here tonight.”
The kids more than express their disappointment. As you grab a couple of kid sized umbrellas from the closet. It’s not his fault the ex isn’t thinking.
Dad pulls in the driveway around midnight.
“Come in Dad!”
“I have to be up at 7 to go to work. I need my beauty sleep.” The little one laughs. The 12 year old is more disappointed. They pop up the umbrellas as Dad gets out of the car.
“Love you guys.”
They echo the sentiment and hugs are given. It’s about 12:10 AM and the driveway and cul de sac are still packed with cars. The kids disappear into the house. The empty gut feeling from food and disappointment brings a heavy sigh and the car is started and pointed in the direction of the new place. Arriving back about 12:30 AM he goes back to the counter to open mail before crashing.
IRS great.
He opens the letter. They want $7,312.14.
Of course they do.
The rest of the mail can wait til tomorrow night. Dad has to be at work at 8. End of month meeting for the first half of the day, The Pre-plan for next month which will be shared Monday with the employees, makes today’s meeting, a must attend.
At noon, Dad’s colleagues, get on his case a little. Some of the guy are actually good guys, but their support can push even more buttons so you smile as they try to prop you up.
“A little slow after a big night partying I guess?”
The guy doesn’t have kids or an ex or a non-ex.
“Took my kids to Guardians of the Galaxy and then had pizza. So yes.”
“You have to get your angels earlier in the evening, then you can be alive when you’re here. Really, you’d be sharper and ready for your briefing.”
Dad can’t kill him. Too many people watching. Bill’s not being a total jerk. Let him live. He doesn’t have a clue how complex it all is. He’s a well intentioned dragon.
“Appreciate the advice, Bill. I’ll work on that.”
Dad opens the car door as he is ready to leave the lot and head home. He spies his daughters phone on the back seat, mostly because it’s ringing before he has opened the door.
It’s the kids Mom.
He swipes and hears an elevated voice.
“…Saturday and you could at least have had the courtesy to give your daughter her phone when you raced out of the driveway, dropping them in the middle of the night.”
Can’t kill her either.
“I should have checked the car. Didn’t even dawn on me.”
Then he thinks back to the seminar he was at last week.
Dragon or Well Intentioned Dragon?
“I’ll stop it off in about 20 minutes. I’m just leaving the office now.”
“And that proves my point. All you do is work and all you care about is money. How do you think your daughter feels?”
“See you in 20 minutes.”
He slides the daughters phone into his shirt pocket.
He gets to his ex’s house, knocks on the door.
She is there in seconds.
“It means nothing to you but that phone is really important to our daughter. You have to do a check of the WHOLE car before you leave the driveway.”
He hands the phone to the ex.
“Of course. Don’t know what I was thinking. My bad.”
“Damn right it was your bad.”
Their daughter comes to the front door and sees it’s Dad. She smiles.
“That was a great movie last night! It was so much fun! And the pizza was awesome. I was so full Dad!”
“You stuffed them full of carbs at bedtime? You really need to schedule better.”
“I can imagine that’s true.”
“Mom is that my phone?”
“Yes honey, we found it in your Dad’s car, backseat. Here you go. Thanks Mom, Bye Dad!” And off she ran to answer her texts.
“I’ve gotta be going, you have a good one.”
“You could have said goodbye to your daughter. Remember she matters more than your business projects. You never cease to amaze me.”
“My mistake. Have a good one.”
He turned and walked as calmly as possible to the car.
Mom will be telling this story to the barking chain network any minute. Dad is a jerk.
She’s not an ex, she’s a dragon, she’s a... he thinks out loud to the windshield washer.
He couldn’t have felt worse.
This is the impact dragons (though this dragon didn’t seem well intentioned) have on you.
Dragons and well intentioned dragons are two different monsters. Both need to be dealt with differently.
In this case, the Mom, could have heard from the ex,
“you were the one that set the pick up time.”
“You were the one who didn’t feed them before we went to the show.”
“You were the one who is being a bit.. to me, I’m not saying anything bad about you, just like we agreed in the divorce.”
What SHOULD Dad have said and done in the moment?
What about in an ex to ex meeting next month?
More important?
How do you want Dad to eliminate the IMPACT of the INFLUENCE, and the IMPACT of the TOXICITY of the dragons, both well intentioned and ill-intended?
And most important, next week you expand your awareness to see how friends get involved through advice giving to people that ends up destroying marriages and other relationships.
How you put it to a stop will depend on their intention.
That we’ll answer next week in Part 2.
