Sincerely Scotty by Walter Scott 1-29
Attitude
“The optimist already sees the scar over the wound; the pessimist still sees the wound beneath the scar.” — Ernst Schroder
Did you ever get up on the wrong side of the bed and it left you with a bad attitude? Perhaps you were cross and cranky or someone said something that set you off in a bad direction for the day. I’m not used to getting up early and going to work so it would be easy to be cranky. Fortunately, my first stop is at the coffee pot so I usually start off in good spirits. Now, I’ve written about attitude before, but it is a subject that I feel needs readdressing from time to time. Read this story and give it some thought – 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 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,” said Jerry. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you will react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”
I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start by 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 unlocked 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 dial. 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 accidents. 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 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 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 me 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.”
Well, Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.
There is a sign hanging in one of the offices in Boeing (where I used to work) that says, “Attitude can overcome even the tallest obstacles.”
It’s your choice how you live your life and it’s a choice you have to make every day. Attitude, after all, is everything.
Sincerely,
Scotty