THE POWER OF A GOOD ATTITUDE
Many years ago while living in Santa Monica, I had 3 fender-benders and side-swiped someone’s car while parallel parking, all in the space of 6 weeks or so. I am a good driver so this was wild to me. I was rear-ended twice on the freeway and rear-ended someone on PCH. Both times I was hit, the damage was so small I told them not to worry about it and we all went on our way. The person I rear-ended wanted my insurance information although there was barely anything to see. Completely fine, it is the right thing to do.
Then one day, pulling up to the front of my house to parallel park on the one way street, I managed to scratch the front left side of a parked BMW. Awesome! At this point I’m flabbergasted that this kind of thing keeps happening but I leave a note on the back of my business card and tuck it under the wiper, because that is also the right thing to do. Easy.
About an hour later I got a call.
“Hello. You left your business card on my daughter’s car. Thank you so much, that is really impressive. Nobody does that anymore.”
“Yes, I’m so sorry. Please let me know what the repairs cost and I’m happy to take care of it.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about that at all. I see you are a personal trainer and I’m looking for one.”
Turns out this gentleman lived right across the street from me. I ended up training him 3 days a week for a few years, and he never let me pay for the car repairs.
When I tell this story, I always use it as an example of how God loves a good attitude, because I am positive that He chose to bless me due to my maintaining a good attitude with each of these wacky incidents. I could have easily gotten frustrated and spiraled that thinking into a “bad day” or a “bad month”. Instead, I chose to go with the flow, do the right thing and keep smiling.
There is great power in a good attitude. Usually the only difference between a good and a bad day is our attitude about what is happening. In each of those accidents I could have spent hours of time upset, worried about money, and nervous it would keep happening. What a waste of days that would have been. To be honest, while I know I would still have left the card on the parked car, I’m not sure a bad or fearful attitude would have welcomed this man as a new client. I’m glad I never had to find out.
THE $500 PINECONE
A couple years later I came back from a walk in Santa Monica before my first fitness client of the day. I got in my car, shut the door and BOOM! I heard what sounded like a gunshot and glass breaking. Shocked and scared, I instinctively turned around to find my back windshield shattered with a big hole in it, and on the floor of my car was a pinecone. I cannot make this up. I got out and looked around and sure enough I was parked under a massive tree with pinecones dropping regularly. I pulled my car forward and out of the way.
Then I sat there unsure of what to do but thought to myself, well, I guess this is what I’m doing now. I called my client explaining I wasn’t going to be able to make it today and gave my other clients a heads up as well. The car dealership, which was 30 miles away, confirmed I should not drive the car in that condition, especially on the freeway. I then called a glass repair company and they said they would be a few hours and it would cost $450. My insurance had a $500 deductible. Perfect!
At this point I am looking around and decide I’d ask the construction crew across the street building a house if they had any plastic and tape I could use. Two gentlemen walked over having seen what happened and proceeded to take care of the job for me, laying plastic on my back seat, carefully punching in the remaining glass and covering the missing the window. We laughed and chatted and I went on my way to the dealership, canceling the rest of my day, losing a few hundred dollars in work, and spending $500 on a new windshield.
This story does not end it me winning a new car, but is actually a story I think of fondly. I could have given my power away to this unfortunate circumstance and let it ruin my day and cause me more stress about money. Instead, I stayed cool and calm, maintained a good attitude and two nice men who came to my rescue. It was a good day. And I still have that pinecone!
Side story about doing the right thing: Two years ago I was taking my youngest bonus boy to basketball practice and he was still at the age where we needed to keep reminding him to open the car door carefully in tight parking spaces. In a rush to get into practice he ended up denting the door of the brand new truck next to us.
He got a scared look on his face and I explained not to worry about it, he was being careful, things happen. I told him we’d just write a note and leave it on the windshield, just like I had done before. This is the first time he’d heard of this so he was a little scared that we would get in trouble, but I told him it's the right thing to do and we’ll just pay for the repairs. Easy peasy.
The next day I got a voicemail from the truck owner.
“Thank you for writing the note. I had my four children with me and it started an amazing conversation about doing the right thing. So thank you so much for leaving the note. Don’t worry about the repairs.”