Regards, Errol from Narangba, Queensland Australia.( Where the summer time
is just great).
-----Original Message-----
From: Jennapause(AT)aol.com <Jennapause(AT)aol.com>
To: tmic-list(AT)eskimo.com <tmic-list(AT)eskimo.com>
Date: Saturday, 12 December, 1998 9:38 PM
Subject: It's all in the attitude
>
>Read this, and let it really sink in...Then choose how you
>start your day tomorrow...
>
>
>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.
>
>You have two choices now:
>1. Delete this.
>2. Forward it to the people you care about.
>
>Hope you will choose #2.
>