DB Bedford recounts getting impatient at a car wash, confronting staff about timing, then realizing he was projecting his own anxiety onto them. His emotional charge clouded his thinking. He walks through how checking your mood before reacting can stop you from being the problem in a conflict.
Peace, fam. DB Bedford here, the EI Guy. Listen, as I'm sitting here waiting on my, my homeboy, we about to have lunch, I was thinking about this incident I had the other day when I took my car to get washed. And you know, sometimes I'm the problem, and I am always willing to admit that. So real quickly, I'm getting my car washed. At the time, it's about 10 o'clock in the morning. I have an appointment at 12 on this particular day. So I pull my car up to the car wash to get washed. I asked the guy for— I needed a hand wash, and I asked him how long would it take. He said about an hour. Or so. I double-checked with him. I said, you know, can you do it in an hour? Because I really need that. That'd be very helpful. He says, sure, no problem. So it takes them about 10 to 15 minutes to get the car to the back. They get in the back. And so because I'm at the car wash and just walking around, I walk around to the back just to see How the process is going, and I noticed that my car hasn't been touched for a minute. So obviously that's starting to create a little bit of anxiety because I'm like, I got to get out of here. And I asked the guy, you know, would he be done? And everything I'm looking at is not supporting what he told me. All right, watch this. So the story starts in my head. Starts washing it, then he stops, he goes do something else. They— then somebody comes to talk to him, he stops. They switch off. So now I'm watching, uh, my car not getting washed like in a fluent way. And so now that's starting to raise concerns. I call myself being patient, waiting to see how this is going to play out. Then eventually I tell myself I'm about to go get a manager. I go to the manager, um, they send a young— a youngster to me. He's not necessarily a manager, but he's like, he's going to be the spokesperson for today. I explained to him my concerns. He doesn't really— from my perspective, he's not listening to me. He's just, uh, telling me how their process goes, and I'm not trying to hear that because I'm trying to get out of here. So then another person comes, sees our interaction. He comes and he's going to take over. He's going to, you know, he's going to be— he's going to tap him out and get in. A little older. So he listens to the conversation. He listens to what I'm venting about. He reassures me my car is going to get out. Uh, in time, and they're back washing it. Things are going and going in forward motion, but for some reason I'm still feeling a certain kind of way. So I found myself wanting to debate and go back and forth with him about the original conversation of me being told that's going to be less than an hour or less. So even though the hour hasn't hit yet, and I told myself a story that somehow they wasn't going to be done because the way the process was going— watch this— the way the process was going It's not how I thought it should be done. I figured since I pay for a hand wash, I paid more than everybody else getting the regular wash, that they should be giving my car full attention and it should look like I'm gonna be out here in time. But it's not how it looked to me, which made me feel a certain kind of way. But all this is me and I'm emoting that energy into the conversation. And even though I practice emotional intelligence on a regular basis, I represent myself as the EI guy. Manage your emotions, 'cause it wasn't an argument, it wasn't a conflict, But it was a conversation that wasn't flowing because I wanted— I don't even know what I wanted to hear, right? And he was reassuring me that the thing that I was complaining about was going to get done. And see, sometimes you be so emotionally charged— that's why I say when emotions are high, logic is low— that the logical thing is that my car got done, like it got done like they said it was. But emotionally, because I projected— Projected. Projection bias, projected out to them how I thought the situation should be handled. I found myself in an unnecessary conversation. So what's the point, DB? The point is that sometimes we are the problem and we have to own that. And so then I walked away feeling a certain kind of way. About another 10 minutes before I actually start practicing emotional intelligence by going back to the first domain of self-awareness. And I had to check my own mood, my attitude, and energy I was bringing to the situation for absolutely no reason. I want to share that with you guys today on this beautiful day, just in case you find yourself being the problem and you don't realize it, and that's why you can't get to a solution.
I was literally kicked off a Southwest flight before for being disrespectful.
