04 Dec 2016 The Roaring Tractor and The Raging Bull
The huge old tractor was just too tempting to me. I stood there for a few minutes at the base of the big machine admiring it in awe. It was 6:00 AM and still a little chilly. Joe, the cowshed supervisor had just left. He said that he had to go make a phone call and would be back in 30 minutes or so. “Will you be OK?” he asked. “Yes sure,” I said “No problem”. A minute later he was gone.
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In this series of short stories, I’ll share with you episodes from my own life as well as the lives of colleagues and coaching clients, from whom I have learned career and life lessons. Some stories had positive outcomes, while others contain reflections on events that I wish had never happened. I hope that you will find them of value.
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Back to my story. I was 11 years old at the time, living on a kibbutz as a boarding school student. My mom had fallen ill a few months earlier and she could not look after my younger brother and me. So, being the older one, my parents decided to send me off to the boarding school at Kibbutz Mizrah. Most of the students at the school were children of members of the kibbutz and the rest were boarding students or “external children” as we were known. Children whose parents decided to send them to a boarding school, for whatever reason.
My years at Mizrah were by far the best years of my childhood. One of the things I loved best was to go to the cowshed at around 5:30 in the morning to help Joe, the morning shift supervisor, milk the cows and do any odd job he asked me to. I have developed a special relationship with Joe, who played the role of my adoptive big brother. He understood me and made me feel like a “big boy” and be proud of myself. I cherished these early morning hours at the cowshed.
Finally, I gave in to my temptations and climbed onto the driver seat of the big old tractor. I swiveled the steering wheel left and right and imagined myself driving the tractor through the fields of the kibbutz. And then, two or three minutes into my imaginary ride, I noticed the key hanging from the ignition and it did not take long for me to muster the courage to turn the key and start the engine. The long gear shift stick was in the park position, and since I could not reach the clutch or the accelerator, I felt quite safe just enjoying the roaring sound of the engine.
And then, out of nowhere, he appeared right in front of my tractor. He was huge and threatening with his two large horns aimed straight at the tractor. In fact, I knew him well. He was the biggest bully in the cowshed. He stood there, about three feet from the tractor, his eyes fixated on me, giving me the most menacing and frightening look I have ever experienced. After about ten minutes of sitting there, terrified of the bull, I started to feel the need to go to the toilet. My fear had most probably a lot to do with my need to go. I knew that I could not get off the tractor while he was standing there. So I decided to blow the horn, hoping to scare him off. But instead, the bull went into a rage. He ran into the tractor and hit the front tire with his huge horns, rocking the tractor so hard that I feared I was going to fall off my seat. I realized that the only solution was for me to sit quietly, not look in his direction, and not do anything that might irritate him. But how long would I be able to sit there, with my toilet need becoming uncontrollable by the minute?
Then at long last, I saw Joe slowly walking on the path back towards the cowshed. “Joe, please help me” I shouted. Joe understood immediately the predicament I was in and decided to deal first with the bull. He approached the bull quietly and gently directed him back to his enclosed area, closing the gate after him. Then he came back to the tractor, extended his hand and helped me down. After switching off the engine, Joe held me steady by my shoulders, looked at me with his big brown eyes, and asked me “What have you learned from this experience, Uri?” “Never to let you leave me alone in the cowshed” I answered immediately. “Well, that too,” he said smiling.
What I’ve learned
It took years before the real lesson of my encounter with the bull became clear to me. I’ve learned that I will not always be able to control the outcomes and unintended consequences of my actions and that the secret to success in life is the ability to handle whatever life throws at us, calmly, wisely, and in line with our core values.
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