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 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 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. 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.

Author Unknown

You cannot always control your circumstances. But you can control your own thoughts. Either good or bad, your thinking can makes it so.

Things seem to turn out best for those people who can make the best out of the way things turn out. It is not the situation, it's your reaction to the situation.

The reality of your life may result from many outside factors, none of which you can control. Your attitude, however, reflects the ways in which you elevate what is happening to you.

Life at any time can become difficult. Life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how you adjust yourself to life.
What you see in your mind is what you get out of life.

Don't Be Afraid To Fail
You've failed many times, although you may not remember.
You fell down the first time you tried to walk.
You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim, didn't you?

Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat?
Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also strike out a lot.

R.H. Macy failed 7 times before his store in New York caught on.

English novelist John Creasy got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs.

Don't worry about failure.
Worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.
Published in the Wall Street Journal 1981

Imagine ...
There is a bank which credits your account each morning with $86,400, carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day.
What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Well, everyone has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!
The clock is running. Make the most of today ...
"Seize the day !"

You are Worthy!
Do not undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different. Do not set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.

Do not take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless. Do not let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past nor for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Do not give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying. It is a fragile thread that binds us to each other.

Do not be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give love. The fastest way to lose love is too hold it too tightly. In addition, the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Do not dismiss your dreams. To be without dreams is to be without hope; To be without hope is to be without purpose.

Do not run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

The odds are with you if you keep on trying.
You cannot be beaten at anything,
until you quit ... in your own mind.
There is no defeat except from within,
no really insurmountable barrier
save your own inherent weakness of purpose.
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
Consider yourself on a very long journey,
keep to your vision of success,
In the end, you can only fail if you do not try.
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.
If you've got the nerve to make it,
You Will!!
Victory is a road paved with perseverance.

My Inner Child
She's free and unashamed of having feelings.
She's creative, communicating through drawing
pictures and singing songs.
This is my inner child.
She loves to dance and sing.
She likes jumprope and hopscotch.
She has many friends and she loves herself.
She never worries about pleasing others or
What people think about her.
She feels free.
Free to voice her opinion
Regardless of what anyone says.
She likes to write and she knows
She's good at it.
She loves animals
Because she can really relate to them.
Animals don't have worries
and neither does she.
She only likes to have fun.
She feels lonely at times
And she needs hugs.
But she's "O.K." because
She's "ME".