In the upcoming XCOM 2 ‘Dark Events’ can ruin your day. Great to stop them first! (Image Credit: XCOM 2 & 2K Games)
Regardless of how positive, motivated or noble our intentions – you will probably have felt the wrath of bad people / bad events happening to you.
This is exactly as it sounds, a ‘Dark Event’ is something that bad / negative that can come your way for a range of reasons. Where I got this phrase from is a highly awaited upcoming video game by the name of “XCOM 2”.
I am a massive fan of the original game “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” and this is one of the most popular video game franchises (maybe ever) on PC. In the coming sequel, you are fighting aliens who have conquered Earth and in this you are both working to win against each other.
As from the game a ‘Dark Event’ means that you figure out something bad is coming your way and you can offensively try and stop it. Be it the enemy are getting bigger guns, figuring out where you are or something like that.
Even before I had this term coined from the game, I had some strange feeling like this throughout 2015 and 2014 in my business. Basically, when I was more involved in the politics of leading networking groups – I would have people trying stuff on me all the time. Fortunately most people are just wonderful, however it doesn’t take many poisioned apples to cause damage.
This included anything like:
– People going over my head to complain to the leaders of the Networking Group.
– People try to use me for ‘free’ for hours of work to get the upper hand.
– People trying to get referrals from me – and then trying to ‘hack’ the referral and take the client off me (even though I got them in).
– People trying to mislead me by selling me really poor services and take my money.
– People trying to get together to get me kicked out of my position running the groups.
In these situations, as people try stuff – ‘Dark Events’ would come my way. The trick is knowing and finding out what the ‘bad guys’ are up to and then you can disrupt them as much as possible.
A great example was someone who was pushing people around at one of our networking groups by over selling, speaking over people and just taking far longer than the allowed 40 seconds for their elevator pitch (despite my warnings).
I knew they were quite aggressive and if I ‘counselled’ them too hard, they would go over my head. So I warned my superiors what was happening prior – before I spoke to them. So when they complained, I had them sorted.
Another example was me managing someone who took advantage of a whole group by selling to them during a speech, rather than just giving information (which was against the rules). I told them off, the lodged a complaint against me, but then I disrupted the complaint by then complaning against them for lodging the complaint (funny I know LOL).
Basically, what it was that something bad was happening and I took proactive steps to stop them.
It works really well and these days I am lucky to have few ‘Dark Events’ coming my way. I usually stop them early and as I am successful people now – that acts as a deterrent so people rarely try stuff anymore.
My advice and thinking? Watch for ‘Dark Events’ and if a plan against you is being hatched up or played out, do something to stop it. This worked really well for me and I find when one is starting out is where this tragically happens a lot.
Most people are awesome, but like you find out in policing – some people are just rotten apples and every time you help them, they just slap you hard. That is when a bit of force does wonders.
Love your work, thanks for the read, please share this with those it can help – and if you are victim of a dark event, fight it hard and get the upper hand.
P.S. Image Credit and thanks to 2K Games & XCOM2.
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