These pages have been put together from the Best e-mails I've received
through years.
Attitude is Everything
Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood
and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how
he was doing he would reply, "If I were any better I'd be twins!"
He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed
him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason they followed Jerry
was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee
was having a bad day Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on
the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious,
so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't
be a positive person all the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied,
"Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry you have two choices
today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can be in a bad mood.
I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose
to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from
it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their
complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive
side of life." " Yeah, right but it's not that easy," I protested.
"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When
you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you
react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose
to be in a good mood or a bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how
you live life." I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I
left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but
I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting
to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never
supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one
morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying
to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination.
The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly
and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks
of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments from
the bullet still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident,
when I asked him how he was he said "If I were any better, I'd be twins.
Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him
what went through his mind as the robbery took place. " The first thing
that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,"
Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I have
two choices: I could choose to live , or I could choose to die. I chose
to live." "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?"
I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling
me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room
and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and the nurses, I
got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed
to take action." What did you do?" I asked. "Well there was
a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She
asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied. The doctors and nurses
stopped working as they waited for my reply.. I took a deep breath and yelled
'Bullets!"
Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me
as if I am alive, not dead."
Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his
amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to
live fully.
Attitude, after all is, everything.
You have 2 choices now:
1. Forget it.
2. Try to live by this example and send it to your dear ones.