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 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 the 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 combinations.
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 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 said. 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.
