Bohdan,....Hope you had a good weekend....
There are certain comments I would not touch with a ten foot poe. I chose this thread to pass on some info I rarely get from a mining exec........Take care..........j
ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING.........By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz
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 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 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. 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. |
