Do What You Can, The Rest Will Follow

“It would be ridiculous to hold your breath and blame others for your inability to breathe.”

-Steve Maraboli

I’ve found the “Dog” and “Cat” metaphors very useful over the last couple of months. The difference is that “dogs” come when you call, and play tricks. They are obedient. “Cats” can ignore your direct requests, but will come and curl up on your lap when you are busy.

So in any goal, and task, there are the things we can directly influence (“dogs”) and the stochastic or probability-based reactions of the universe or other people (“cats”)

For instance, let’s say you were a door-to-door salesman. You want to sell a vacuum cleaner (that’s a pretty old example, but hang in there).

You do NOT know which housewife will buy the vacuum cleaner. That is the “cat.” But you do know that, overall across the company, the average ratio is 20:1. You have to knock o give twenty presentations tok make one sale. And you have to knock on 3 doors to get one invitation to give a presentation. That means you have to knock on 60 doors to make one sale, right?

Knocking on 60 doors is the “dog”. The specific housewife who lets you in and then purchases is the “cat.”

Focus on the dog. Someone wants to write a bestselling novel? The “dog” is the work, and the research. Can one deliberately create a bestseller? Depends on definitions but yes, it seems to be possible. What if you want to create a “classic”?