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 would be twins!"
He was a unique manager because
he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to
restaurant. The reason the waiters 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 of 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 choose to 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, 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 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 of the bullets still in his body.
I saw Jerry about six months
after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were
any better, I'd be twins. Want to see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds,
but did ask him what had gone 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 had 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 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.
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