Michael 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 natural motivator.
If an employee was having a bad day,
Michael 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
Michael and asked him, "I don't get it!
You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do
it?"
Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself,
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," Michael 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
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 Michael said. Soon thereafter, I left the
company 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 Michael was involved in a
serious accident,
falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care,
Michael was released from thehospital with rods placed in his
back.
I saw Michael about six months after the accident.
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 I did ask him what had gone
through his mind as the accident took place.
"The first thing that went through my mind was the
well-being of my soon
to be born daughter, " Michael replied. "Then, as I lay
on the ground,
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.
Michael 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 Michael.
"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, "Gravity,"
Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live.
Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead,"
Michael 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.
