Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Two Choices

"Life is full of choices, but it is up to us how we want to live our life." ...Sunny Lee

Amazing story to share below:

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 his 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 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. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can 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 replied. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You can choose to 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 is 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 had done something you are never supposed to do in the 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 eighteen 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 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 did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery tool place?

Jerry responded, “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door. 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 I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes I read, He’s a dead man. I knew I had to take action.” "What did you do?” I then 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 paused 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.”

Jerry lived, thanks to the skills 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.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life

Inspiring Quotes from Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

Deficiency motivation doesn't work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

Miracles come in moments. Be ready and willing.

Only the insecure strive for security.

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

Self-worth comes from one thing - thinking that you are worthy.

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.

Successful people make money. It's not that people who make money become successful, but that successful people attract money. They bring success to what they do.

The fact that you are willing to say, ''I do not understand, and it is fine,'' is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.

There is no way to prosperity, prosperity is the way.

Transformation literally means going beyond your form.

What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside of you.

What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

You are doomed to make choices. This is life's greatest paradox.

You can never get enough of what you don't want. You can't choose up sides on a round world.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

You'll see it when you believe it.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Fly high like an eagle

'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd. The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm. '

Wally - A cab driver

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Harvey Mackay was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a car pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed Harvey a laminated card and said:

"I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement."
Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said:
Wally's Mission Statement :
To get my customers to their destination in the quickest,
Safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment .

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, "Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf."
Harvey said jokingly, "No, I'd prefer a soft drink."
Wally smiled and said, "No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice."
Almost stuttering, Harvey said, "I'll take a Diet Coke."
Handing him his drink, Wally said, "If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal , Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today."
As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card. "These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio."

And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.

"Tell me, Wally," amazed Harvey asked the driver, "have you always served customers like this?"
Wally smiled into the rearview mirror. "No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd. The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm. '"

"That hit me right between the eyes," said Wally. "Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more."

"I take it that has paid off for you," Harvey said.

"It sure has," Wally replied. "My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action."
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab.

I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting.

Great service is a matter of choice. You could either quack like a Duck or soar like a Eagle.


According to me, it doesn't have to be just service. This story can be related to anything. It can be the way you act for certain situations like work environment, about life, our future and so forth. Its up to us to be DUCK or EAGLE on each one of these occasions.

Who would you prefer to be?

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I received this valuable email today. I always feel that each day there is a lesson to be learned :-)

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Against the Odd - Its ain't over 'till it's over


"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"...Rocky Balboa... the boxer who overcame all odds to become a champion

"I'd hold you up to say to your mother, "this kid's gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid's gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew." And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching you, every day was like a privilige. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain't gonna have a life."...Rocky Balboa