Going the Way of the Young Hooligan
Spoiler alert! This brief message provides a spoiler for a great book – How to Train Your Dragon.
The book, which we read as a family, was even more dramatic as an audio book. The young Hooligan –Hiccough Horrendous Haddock the 3rd, who is the son of Stoic the Vast, is slated to become the leader of both the Hooligan and Meathead Viking tribes.
To become the leader, Hiccough must learn the way of the Vikings by capturing and training his very own dragon alongside a cohort of his peers. While being taught by Gober the Belch, he manages to receive a toothless dragon – not by capturing it but as a sympathy gift from his friend, Fishlegs. His attempt to capture a dragon in the cave was thwarted as he managed to awaken all of the dragons, which subsequently caused the entire cohort - who already had their dragons - to flee in terror.
To be effective in training obedient dragons, the venerated Viking training book has only one line of instruction written down – “YELL AT IT!” This bit of instruction did not work for the meek Hiccough. As a matter of fact, his toothless dragon paid no attention to his commands. As a result he learned to speak Dragonese and wrote his own manual, which highlighted that dragons love jokes. At the end of the summer, all the boys were to participate in the Fall Games. Failure to train his dragon by the start of the Fall Games, would lead to banishment from the tribe forever. When the games kicked off, Hiccough’s dragon caused a terrible battle between the dragons of the cohort which proved to the two tribes that none of these boys had control of their terrifying creatures. All were banished!
The day before the boys were to be sent away from their respective tribes, a large sea dragon took up residence near their village. Stoic the Vast went and tried to yell at the dragon to get it to leave, but to no avail. A war council was called and the leaders of the community tried to find a way to deal with the threatening beast. Without the knowledge of the council, Hiccough was nominated by his cohort to talk with the beast – a skill that no other Viking was capable of doing because it was outlawed. This skill, however, was the beginning of the end of the deadly beast!
Although the climax of the book was dramatic, the lessons I gleaned were a little more subtle. Hiccough was timid relative to those in his cohort. He had a lot of anxiety regarding his destiny to be the leader of the Viking tribes. He broke his community rules and learned to speak dragon to become more effective in studying and training his dragon. He chose to be resourceful when – although nominated – he faced his fears to confront the sea dragon and ultimately created a solution to save them all.
Questions to Ponder
How do our finances relate to this cute little children’s tale? Let’s consider some of our financial training manual’s “wisdom”.
I don’t have a stable income to budget.
I must have a good credit score to operate in our credit driven culture.
I need to have a credit card in case of emergencies.
I will always have a payment of some sort.
I deserve a brand new… (use your imagination here).
These are just foundational doses of modern wisdom that are supposed to help you train your financial dragons, but let me speak honestly with you. All this wisdom brings is more stress and conflict. It leads to burnout as you serve other people by being pawns in their master plans.
Be different. Be courageous. Be bold. Start changing your family tree’s financial outlook. Start by asking and answering the following questions.
What are your short-term and long-term goals?
If you struggle for ideas, start compiling a list of your top 100 material/immaterial wants.
What are all of your current sources of income?
What are all of your liabilities to include standard living expenses and debt payments?
What creative ways could you earn additional income?
If irregular, how can you normalize your cash flow to create a stable budget?
Who can you ask for assistance if you need accountability and support?
Admittedly this is just the start of your training, but keep at it. Fail fast. Fail frequently. Fail forward. It is the only way that anybody successful has achieved their dreams.
To studying and training hard!
P.S. This is a serious endorsement. If you are going on a longer car ride with kids, get the How to Train Your Dragon audio book from your library. It is well worth the listening!