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 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 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 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,” 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 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, 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. Want to

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.

Work like you don’t need the money.

Love like it’s never going to hurt.

Dance like nobody’s watching.

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