Excerpts

On a freezing February day in a small town in Pennsylvania, a broken weatherman endures the worst day of his life. He wakes at six a.m., smashes his alarm clock on the floor, and drags himself to work. Unshaven and unkempt, he delivers his despondent report to the camera concluding with, “There is no way this winter is ever going to end.”

With dead eyes and a resigned voice, he tells his producer, Rita, “I’ve come to the end of me,” and then tries to kill himself over and over again. He electrocutes himself with a toaster in his bath, walks in front of a truck, and throws himself off a building. At the end of his tether, death seems like the only way out of the nightmare he perceives his life to be.

Later, on the exact same freezing February day in the same small town in Pennsylvania, the same man enjoys the best day of his life. He is smartly dressed, and with a happy disposition he delivers his heartfelt report to the camera,
this time concluding with, “I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.”

After his report, he proceeds to spend the day performing acts of kindness. He catches a boy falling from a tree, changes a tire for some old ladies, and saves an important local official from choking.

That evening at a town party, he entertains the crowds with his piano playing and is praised by the same people he used to despise. Rita meets him and says, “You seem like the most popular person in town.” After she has paid top dollar for him at the auction, he sculpts her face in ice and tells her, “No matter what happens tomorrow or for the rest of my life I’m happy now, because I love you.”

The man is Phil Connors, the town is Punxsutawney, and the movie is Groundhog Day. The town has not changed. The events and the people have not changed. Not even time has changed. The same people perform the same activities and speak the same words. The days are identical except for one thing. Phil has changed.

He has gone from the worst day of his life to the best day of his life, not by changing his outer world, but by changing his inner life. This is the most important lesson of my life, and the movie Groundhog Day is the ultimate class in
how to live and work.

You too can change a miserable day into a wonderful day. I have written The Magic of Groundhog Day to show how you can follow Phil’s lead to achieve this transformation in your own life. Like Phil, we can all wake up and discover joy rather than boredom, hope rather than emptiness, and love rather than self-absorption.

And therein lies the Secret to the Magic of Groundhog Day. In those first few seconds of waking up in the morning we have a choice that is the magic of being human. We have the choice to be happy or sad, to be optimistic or pessimistic,  to act out of love or out of fear.

If we choose the former and consistently build on that choice throughout our day we can discover the magic waiting for us now