Hi, this is Rem Jackson. I'm the CEO of Top Practices.
About a year ago I watched a very short, little film online. And it was about a man who was sitting on a piece of cardboard in front of a large institution, like a library or a government building, lots of steps, granite. And he had a sign and a cup in front of him and the sign said, "I'm blind. Please help." And people would walk by and occasionally drop in a coin here, coin there.
All of a sudden, a woman walks up to him and stands in front of him and he reaches down and touches her shoes. Which is an important little detail because he will recognize her again because of her shoes. She kneels down, she looks at his sign and she takes it. She turns it over. She gets a Sharpie out and she writes something on it and sets it down beside him, stands up, and walks away. The frame advances and it's later, maybe the next day, probably the next day or sometime in the future. And now there's money all over his cardboard sheet. His cup is filled. He just can't even put any more coins in it. And all of a sudden you can hear her walking up. She stands in front of him. He touches her shoes and he says, he recognizes her, and he says, "What did you do to my sign?" And she said, nailing down, she said, "I wrote the same thing. Only different."
What she wrote on the sign was "It's a beautiful day. And I can't see it." Now, that's a great little vignette about messaging and how the power of words and how you say something. But for me, it really hit me a lot more. My question is how many times has it been a beautiful day? You've been in the middle of a beautiful day. I would possibly suggest that's every day of your life. Should be the best day of your life ever. That's my goal every single day. And so this day is a beautiful day, but you have something else on your mind. That obstacle in front of you, that problem, that slight, whatever it was that you just want to keep thinking about, causes you to miss, absolutely miss, these moments that you're in right now. You miss your life.
One of my doctors, a younger doctor in practice, a short amount of time, just a year or two had only two staff members and they both quit in the same day. And my doctor sent me this panic message, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I'm cut out for this. And I was like, snap out of it, doctor, of course you're cut out for this. This happens to everybody. Just go get some better people. Which two weeks later he did. But, you know, he came to the Summit where I first told this story of this video that I saw. And then he wrote me and he said, "You know, Rem, he says, that Wednesday when I emailed you about my staff quitting on Saturday, there was a daddy-daughter dance that I took my daughter to. And, you know, it was a beautiful day and I couldn't see it. Cause all I could think about was the problems I was having with my staffing in my office. I'm there with my daughter. This'll never happen again on, in this way. Of course, there's other opportunities, hundreds, if not thousands of them, but that day is gone. It was a beautiful day and I couldn't see it. And I resolve that I will never do that again."
So, how much of your time have you spent with the blessings that are raining down upon your head?
The way I look at it in my life is please no more blessings. I can't handle anymore. I can't carry any more blessings. I'm so blessed in my personal life and my business life. And believe me, I've got problems too. Just like everybody. I always say in Top Practices, it's not as good for us as you think it is. It's not as bad for you as you think it is.
So, today is a beautiful day. It may be your last day, or it may be years and years and years before your last day. But can you see it? And possibly, should you start to really think about seeing that each and every day? I wish that for you. Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and we'll talk again.
