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 deadman’. 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.
-Author Unknown
