Two Bulls on a Hill

Before I get to the Two Bulls on a Hill, I’m going to tell you what I’m most thankful for in this world. It’s my father, Larry Culbertson.

Since I was a kid, my father has allowed me to develop into the man I was meant to be. He never directed me, never pushed me, never shamed me. And he always had the attitude that things turn out for the best and to keep moving forward.

My father was (he’s retired now) a hard-working, blue-collar man who transformed himself into a blue-collar computer technician for AT&T. Right out of high school he was climbing poles to fix and set up phones lines. He also went to electrical and carpentry school. He got so good at computers that he became a highly sought-after technician and actually worked in Europe for a few years as a Lucent Technologies contractor.

But back to the Two Bulls. My father’s character mostly rubbed off on me when he started taking me out to help with his side hustle — roofing. One day, when I was just 15 years old, my father asked if I wanted to come along and make $100 a day ripping off old shingles. I answered right away, “Hundred bucks a day?! Yeah, sure thing! Man that’s a lot!”

I earned every single penny of that hundred bucks. And for the next eight years I helped them and saved all the money I made. What I gained from my father during that time was priceless.

One hot August day I was rushing through a job trying to tear off as many shingles as I could as fast as I could. The over exertion was actually slowing me down. We stopped for a break and sat down on the roof top. My father turned to me and said, “Can I tell you the story about the two bulls?”

“Sure.”

He began, ”An old bull and a young bull sit on top of a hill looking down at a pasture of sheep. The young bull says to the old bull, ‘Hey, lets run down there and take on some of those sheep!’ The old bull laughs and just replies confidently, “No. Let’s walk down there and take on all of those sheep.”

To this day, I appreciate those simple words realize what he meant: that everything worth doing is worth taking your time and doing right. As I grow older, those words stay with me and are priceless. While I feel I’m always learning and trying to improve myself, one thing always comes to my mind when I’m taking on a new project — what would my father do in this situation?

I appreciate that old bull very much.