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 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
incident. 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 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. 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. 
