We're getting our bathroom redone. The process has been a little bumpy. We hired a family friend as our contractor, and while the project got started fast, we hit a snag. A communication snag. Our contractor wanted to be paid early for work that wasn't finished yet. And I know from experience: the moment you pay a contractor is the moment they vanish. So we said, "We'll pay when the job's done."
What followed was a back-and-forth about industry norms, his business bank account, paying subcontractors, and on and on. I found myself getting wound up and genuinely frustrated. I had to step back and wonder: what's actually going on here?
I was, reluctant as I am to admit it, emotionally triggered.
Being 2026, I immediately put a screenshot of our text exchange into ChatGPT and asked for help understanding the dynamic. It pulled out a couple of phrases our contractor had used as passive-aggressive and emotionally manipulative. Bingo. Two behaviors that, when I see them, I know I'm likely to get very upset.
Here's what's happening under the hood
All of us have trigger behaviors. Things other people do that produce an immediate, below-conscious spike of cortisol or emotion with no warning. In my Emotional Intelligence workshops, I teach an exercise called "Emotional Triggers" that tackles exactly this.
Here's the short version: I ask people to look at a list of everyday behaviors (whining, aggression, passive-aggressiveness, manipulation, sarcasm, silent treatment) and identify which ones are most likely to set them off. Then I ask them to pick one trigger and answer two questions:
What goes through your brain when you encounter this behavior? What's the thought process that takes you from "I noticed this" to "I'm upset"?
What's an alternative thought you could use instead? Something that would reduce the emotional charge and give you back control of your response.
The group discussion is always fascinating. People start breaking down their hair-trigger reactions to very common behaviors. Usually there's a lot of overlap, but just as often, someone's number-one trigger barely registers for the person sitting next to them.
Back to my bathroom
Once I recognized that the "manipulation" alarm had fired in my own brain, I could see the whole chain reaction more clearly. My contractor's guilt-tripping about cash flow had hijacked my instinct to empathize, because I know the anxiety of managing cash flow for a small business. But that empathy was colliding with frustration over missed deadlines and a request for early payment, and the collision was producing an anxiety spike I was carrying around all day.
So I went back to my own exercise. What if, instead of reacting to the guilt trip, I chose my response? I had a few options:
Attack back. Argue and dismiss. Not great.
Cave and pay early. That would undermine my leverage as a customer.
Decide this is a him-problem. Reiterate we'll pay on completion, and stop spending emotional energy on a momentary lapse in professionalism.
I picked option three. As of this writing, the bathroom isn't done. But I've taken on a lot less emotional burden trying to manage someone else's feelings.
Try this with your own triggers
Next time your...
Boss texts you at 4 PM on a Sunday with a work question and your Sunday scaries spike
Partner is passive-aggressive about a chore you keep putting off
Friend complains about a boyfriend you already think is a dud but you've been holding your tongue about
...notice what happens inside you. Then decide to try a different response. See what changes.
If you want to go deeper: I've put together an AI-powered practice tool that walks you through the full Emotional Triggers exercise from our workshop, identifying your triggers, mapping your thought patterns, and building alternative responses.
And if this resonates and you'd like to explore EI training for your team, just reply to this email. I'd love to talk about it.
— Dave