I recently wrote about remaining calm while waiting 45 minutes at a customer service desk (Rewarding Mellow). In case you wondered how I stay mellow, I will share with you my secrets. These are techniques that I have worked for years to master and that have helped me in business, marriage, parenthood and many other walks of life.

I’ll use marriage as an example. See, I used to get impatient while waiting for my wife. We are supposed to meet our friends at the restaurant in ten minutes. How can she still be getting ready? How long does it take to put on makeup!? When are we going to leave!?!?!?! I used to confront my wife about these things. I made three discoveries in these confrontations that have helped me change my approach.

(1) My questions did not speed her up. If anything, they slowed down the process. This discovery was important, because it forced me to recognize that I had very little control over the situation. I find the same to be true in most customer service situations like the one I wrote about at Lowe’s. I can ask questions, push, agitate, do any number of things, but in the end, they had to search their whole warehouse to determine my screen door wasn’t there. No questions or anger or prodding would have changed that. Key lesson: disrupting the process doesn’t speed it up.

(2) My wife does not like to be rushed, and the unhappiness generated by fighting about being late greatly outweighed the unhappiness that came from just being late. I don’t like to be unhappy. I’m also not particularly fond of being angry. If I have a choice, at any given moment, I’d prefer to be calm and happy vs. angry and unhappy. This sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often people choose the latter. Key lesson: getting angry won’t make me happy.

(3) Paying attention to being late only adds to the anxiety. I used to turn the TV off and put away my book or newspaper when it came time to leave. At that point the only thing I had left to do was to watch the clock. There are few things that raise my anxiety more than watching the clock show me getting later and later and later. Now I try to find the most interesting TV show to watch or article to read or game to play. I look for some activity to engage in that will actually aggravate me to have to stop. It totally takes my mind off of waiting. Key lesson: being happy makes the time fly.