What My Cat Taught Me: The Most Crucial Business Lesson of 2024

The most important lesson I’ve learned about life, work, and leadership this year came from a cat. And I don’t like cats.

I arrived at a cabin in Albany, Texas, for a much-needed solo retreat. The plan was to read, write, reflect, and reset.

As I unloaded the car, a tiny, six-week-old ball of fur, no bigger than my hand, greeted me on the front porch. Before I even had the cabin door fully open, the cat squeezed past my legs and shot inside, a furry embodiment of chaos in my carefully planned solitude.

I put him out the backdoor and jumped immediately into my gameplan to rest and reset. The kitten sat at the door meowing without pause for five straight minutes. Not typically the soundtrack that helps with focus. So, I finally let him into the house.

I tried to ignore him and focus on my goals, but he climbed up my leg, sat on my laptop keyboard, and chewed on the pages of the book I was reading, Living Life Backwards. My rare chance to slow down, reflect, and dream (something that parenting three young children doesn’t leave much time for) was being completely ruined by this cat.

My annoyance grew until I heard a voice, perhaps my own, maybe something more, whispering, „Curt… just enjoy the damn cat.“

The irony is that the book, Living Life Backwards, is about Ecclesiastes. The central message is that a life well-lived is one that views life as a gift rather than something to be achieved or controlled. Yet, there I was, viewing this tiny creature as an obstacle to my meticulously planned „achievements“ for this retreat.

As an Enneagram Type 3, a classic achiever, my default mode is to optimize every interaction, to time-box every task, all in the pursuit of maximizing my impact. Even the moments I set aside for rest become about achievement. But when the lens I apply to work is only about achieving, I start to view the unexpected gifts as burdens, as obstacles, as impediments.

But I can never perfectly control my environment. And it’s that very pressure to control which exhausts me and ensures I won’t make the progress I aim to achieve. What I needed to learn was that I wasn’t in control. I also needed to see the unexpected as a gift. This kitten was a mirror, reflecting back to me the fundamental shift I needed to make in work and life.

So I played with the kitten, fed him, and let him nap in my lap. He climbed on my shoulders, chewed on my notes, and in the process, chipped away at my armor of control. Then something remarkable happened. My mind cleared, my stress eased, and I began to think more clearly about the very questions I had come to Albany to answer.

The kitten taught me a lesson I won’t soon forget. When we stop resisting the unexpected and embrace it as a gift, we open ourselves up to new possibilities, new joys, and a new peace in the process.

Nearly every leader I talk to these days is struggling with exhaustion and stress. I share this story because all of my efforts to solve it haven’t come close to the lesson this cat was hellbent on teaching me.

And the lessons haven’t stopped. My family and I adopted the kitten, who we named Albany (nicknamed Ollie). He now spends his days on my desk while I work, or on my lap for naps. Oh, and the vet said he was born around April 25th, my birthday.

Enjoy the damn cat.