DANCE LIKE NOBODY'S WATCHING:
Jeff 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'd 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 Jeff was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator.
If an employee was having a bad day, Jeff 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 Jeff and asked him, "I
don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How
do you do it?"
Jeff replied, "Each
morning I wake up and say to myself, Jeff, 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 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," Jeff 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 Jeff 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 Jeff 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 gun-point 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, Jeff was found relatively quickly and rushed
to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive
care, Jeff was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets
still in his body.
I saw Jeff about six
months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he said, "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," Jeff
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.
Jeff 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 Jeff. "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."
Jeff 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 2 choices now:
1. Save or delete this mail from your mail box, or 2. Forward it
to people you care about.
We Hope you will choose
No. 2. Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never
been hurt. And...
Dance
like nobody's watching!
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