Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate.
He is always in a good mood and always has
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.
Wanna 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 ER 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.