Kategorie: Other

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, but 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: 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 6 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 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.
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.”
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.

In diving competition, there’s a spot on the board that … when a diver hits that spot… it springs perfectly into getting into the perfect position for optimum performance … there’s a feeling to it … there’s a sound to it … and for some people they imagine where it is on the diving board … and when they hit that spot … everything comes together … and they peak at their maximum performance …
there’s a spot on the stage like that also … and you may have felt it at certain times when a teacher was standing up here or sitting up here … and you felt like the teacher was talking to you … touching your heart … expanding your mind … and really caring about you … giving something that you’ve been looking for for a long time or empowering you in such a way that you felt like you could do anything …
The teacher feels that too when you sit up here or stand up here … it’s like you touch every person in the room and you’re one with every single person … it feels like love … it feels like energy … it’s energizing … it feels beautiful … it looks beautiful … it sounds beautiful … it sounds like the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.
And people feel this feeling now … in different ways … in different parts of your body … for many people, the tan den or dan tine or area below your belly button … is the heart of that energy … the place where you can really feel it … now
Because today is about finding that place, that sweet spot.
Going out to it as often as you can … and spring from it.
Perhaps you’ve already felt that … in certain things you’ve done in your life … maybe in your work … or when you were relating to someone you care about .., that you felt that perfection … it’s one of the things that motivate and drives teachers … because once you know it … you want it… all the time …
Have you ever noticed when a teacher has a presence … when they just fill the room … an energy or a field or a colour or a strength or whatever it is that they are exuding up there … some people might call it charisma … they just fill the room … it’s just such a presence that they fill it …
Today is about helping you to … find that with yourself … so that you can use it … and control it… with volition … whenever you want it … and need it …

And we ALL have our own rigidities without knowing it. I recall eating breakfast in a hotel in Chicago with a colleague who watched me eat my toast in ABSOLUTE horror. I could see the horror in his face. I didn’t know what it meant.. . the TOAST was good! Finally he said, „What is the matter with you, haven’t you got any table manners of ANY sort?“ I said, „Why do you ask?“ „You buttered that toast, broke it in two, and now you are eating half of it.“ I said, „That’s right … it tastes very good.“ He said, „The PROPER way is you CUT your slice of toast in four parts and you pick each up separately and eat it.“ I asked him why and he said, „because that’s the only WAY to eat toast!“ So the next morning I ate my toast by the WHOLE toast without breaking it in half. He finally learned to eat toast comfortably.

One day Dr Milton Erickson’s young son, Robert, fell on the sidewalk out side their home. He cut his mouth and was bleeding heavily when his parents arrived on the scene, alerted by his cries of pain and fear.
Erickson immediately said, „Robert, it hurts. It hurts real bad. Real bad. I wonder when it’s going to stop hurting. Right now it hurts; it just hurts. When is it going to stop hurting?“ This caught Robert’s attention.
At first, he was only attending to the pain, but now he also began wondering when the pain would stop. He stopped crying as he wondered about that. By that time, his parents had gotten him to the bathroom, where they were washing his mouth so Erickson could determine whether or not stitches would be required. As the blood ran from Robert’s mouth into the sink, Erickson said to his wife. „Look at that blood, Mother. That’s good red healthy blood! That’ll clean that wound out really well. Look at the color of that blood.“
Of course, Robert was also looking at the blood. Instead of being captured by his pain and fear, he was fascinated attending to his „good red healthy blood.“ After the wound was washed out, it became clear that Robert would need stitches.
So Erickson began to tell Robert that he needed stitches and reminded him that his brother had gotten stitches last year when he had been hurt. „I wonder whether you are going to win the stitches contest, Robert, and get more than your brother got. He had six stitches. All you would need is seven to win the contest.“
When they arrived at the emergency room, the attending physician was amazed at how quietly this young boy sat while he was being cleaned and stitched up. All Robert said through his stitched-up mouth at the end of the procedure was „How many stitches did I get?“ „Nine,“ he was told. And
he gave a lopsided smile through the wound.
That is the power of changing your attention.

There’s an ancient story about a man shot with a poison arrow. What should be his main concern, who shot him or getting the arrow out? What about when others shoot us with insults? Isn’t it more important to get rid of the discomfort than to to be concerned with who hurt us?
When people feel hurt inside, they often strike out at those close to them. It’s like when you stub your toe and yell. It’s best not to take it personally. It doesn’t have to become your story. No one can make us feel any way that we don’t want to feel. So, it’s really about going deep within ourselves to get the arrow out. Also, get out of target range.
It only lingers because you haven’t stopped telling your story. It’s really pretty simple.

A wise old gentleman retired and purchased a modest home near a school. He spent the first few weeks of his retirement in peace and contentment. Then the new school year began. The very next afternoon three young boys, full of youthful, after-school enthusiasm, came down his street, beating merrily on every dustbin they encountered. The crashing percussion continued day after day, until finally the wise old man decided it was time to take some action.
The next afternoon, he walked out to meet the young percussionists as they banged their way down the street. Stopping them, he said, „You kids are a lot of fun. I like to see you express your exuberance like that. In fact, I used to do the same thing when I was your age. Will you do me a favour? I’ll give you each a dollar if you’ll promise to come around every day and do your thing.“ The kids were elated and continued to do a bang-up job on the trashcans.
After a few days, the old-timer greeted the kids again, but this time he had a sad smile on his face. „This recessions really putting a big dent in my income,“ he told them. „From now on, I’ll only be able to pay you 50 cents to beat on the cans.“ The noisemakers were obviously displeased, but they accepted his offer and continued their afternoon ruckus. A few days later, the wily retiree approached them again as they drummed their way down the street.
„Look,“ he said, „I haven’t received my Social Security check yet, so I’m not going to be able to give you more than 25 cents. Will that be okay?“ „A quarter?“ the drum leader exclaimed. „If you think were going to waste our time, beating these cans around for a quarter, you’re mad! No way, we quit!“ And the old man enjoyed peace and serenity for the rest of his days.

As I lay in bed that night, I overheard the three doctors tell my parents in the other room that their boy would be dead in the morning. I felt intense anger that anyone should tell a mother her boy would be dead by morning. My mother then came in with as serene a face as can be. I asked her to arrange the dresser, push it up against the side of the bed at an angle. She did not understand why, she thought I was delirious. My speech was difficult. But at that angle by virtue of the mirror on the dresser I could see through the doorway, through the west window of the other room. I was damned if I would die without seeing one more sunset. If I had any skill in drawing, I could still sketch that sunset.
R: Your anger and wanting to see another sunset was a way you kept yourself alive through that critical day in spite of the doctors‘ predictions. But why do you call that an autohypnotic experience?
E: I saw that vast sunset covering the whole sky. But I know there was also a tree there outside the window, but I blocked it out. R: You blocked it out? It was that selective perception that enables you to say you were in an altered state?
E: Yes, I did not do it consciously. I saw all the sunset, but I didn’t see the fence and large boulder that were there. I blocked out everything except the sunset. After I saw the sunset, I lost consciousness for three days. When I finally awakened, I asked my father why they had taken out that fence, tree, and boulder. I did not realize I had blotted them out when I fixed my attention so intensely on the sunset. Then, as I recovered and became aware of my lack of abilities, I wondered how I was going to earn a living. I had already published a paper in a national agricultural journal. „Why Young Folks Leave the Farm.“ I no longer had the strength to be a farmer, but maybe I could make it as a doctor.

An unemployed father of four walks towards his nearest town in search of paid work, as he has done every day for the past few months. Bills are piling up and his wife is getting depressed. His toes kicked something and bending down he picked up an old coin.
Arriving at the town he took it to a coin collector who paid him £30 for his find. Passing a hardware store he saw some wood and decided he would build his wife the shelves she had been asking for. On the journey home he was stopped by a furniture maker who offered him £100 for the wood and also a new cupboard for his kitchen. Carrying the cupboard home he passed a house which was being upgraded and the owner offered him £150 for the cupboard which he accepted.
Pleased with his fortune he stood at the gate of his house counting the cash when a man with a knife accosted him, took the cash and ran off. Seeing the attack from the kitchen window his wife rushed out, „Are you all right?“ she cried. „What did he take?“.
The man shrugged his shoulders and said „Oh it was just some battered old coin I stumbled across this morning“

Many years ago there existed a village, tucked away in a remote part of the world. The village was in a deep valley surrounded by gentle green hills. The vegetation was rich and fertile and everyone wjo lived in the village had all the food and water they needed. The animals that belonged to the villagers roamed free and the children palyed happily in the warm sunshine.
One day, a strange beast crept over the top of the hill. The villagers had never seen such a weird creature before and they threw spears at the creature, to no avail. The creature stayed where it was until dusk when it sloped away into the dark.
Everyday at the dawn the beast would reappear and sit at the entrance to the valley. And every day at dusk it would return to the hills.
Over time the villagers grew used to the beast and they would feed it as they walked to work in the fields with their children. The children played happily in the fields, laughing and shouting. Gradually they approached the beast, and pushed and prodded it. The older villagers warned them to stop but they took no notice.
One day a little girl threw a large rock at the beast, who howled in pain and turned and ran off to the hills. It did not return. The villagers became silent and sad and the little girl was upset.
Several years passed. The villagers had almost forgotten about the beast when it reappeared, bigger and older, lumbering over the hill and into the valley. The villagers were glad. When the little girl saw the beast again she ran up to it and kissed it. She knew exactly what she would do next…