One Important Question
During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz.
I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one:
"What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"
Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times.
She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name?
I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked
if the last question would count toward our quiz grade.
"Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant.
They deserve your attention and care, even if - all you do is smile and say 'hello'."
I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
TWO CHOICES
Read this, and let it really sink in.. Then choose how you start your
day.
Jerry is the kind of guy who can really get under your skin. 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 restaurant manager because he had several waiters who
had followed him 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 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 positive
choice about life instead of just reacting negatively 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.
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 I should have locked the
back door," Jerry replied.
"Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered I had two choices: I could
chose to live or 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 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'm going to live, not already 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 make the worst or the best of our situation.
Attitude, after all, is everything.