I was with my dad checking on the cows and we came upon a mother cow and her newborn calf. Mom was new to this motherhood thing, and she was not mothering up to the calf. My dad got off his horse and just kept pushing the calf under the mother cow. It took a few tries, but she finally let that calf hook on and begin to suck down his first meal. The mother cow relaxed and began to graze on grass as the calf fed.

My dad and I rode away, and he told me most of life’s problems are not that complex they just need a simple helping push. That mother cow just did not understand yet what she needed to do. And once she got it, she took over.

Some years back, I was with a friend managing a string of pack mules and he was clearly wanting to say something, but he kept dancing around it. So, I just asked him, “What’s on your mind, just blurt it out and we will deal with the flack as we go along.”

He did just that – he blurted out “I am scared, and I don’t want to tell anybody!”

Now, this guy was not the type who scares real easy so I expected something really terrible was going on. But, remembering what my dad had said, I asked him, “What scares you?”

Turns out his daughter was going to see a surgeon for a pretty simple procedure, and he was scared. He wasn’t afraid she might die, or that the surgery might not work. He was afraid because it suddenly just overtook him how bad it would be if he lost that daughter, anytime.

As soon as he told me, he said the fear went away. He just needed to tell somebody to get it out of his head.

I did not do anything but provide a place he trusted to drop that load. He knew I would not judge him, think he was not a brave man, and social media did not exist at that time in history, so it wasn’t a consideration.

Sometimes it really is just a little moment, a small act of trust that makes the difference.