How Your Business Can Help You Grow Your Cat

This article got me thinking. Hmmm. Does the door swing both ways? How to Grow Your Cat:

1. Providing delicious vittles for her gaping maw.
2. Reducing the need to keep in trim by outsourcing those laborious tasks.
3. Changing the lifestyle to one more sedentary, in keeping with those issues of girth & mirth so bothering our nation's health policy-makers
   

Oh no! I suppose there's a reason the phrase "Fat Cat" has always been associated with business. Let's unpack it:

• Given feline druthers, eating and sleeping top the to-do list. But when necessary, cats can be ruthless businessanimals, using high mark-ups and keeping margins down.
• So on any given plot of land, a cat can quickly rise to the top of the local economy. After a low-key IPO (Initial Public [H]owling-- a UK term) all the forest creatures know who's the brand new boss in town. But once the competition's downed, it's easy to get lazy...
  
• Worst of all, having a successful model has the danger of not developing further (notice I didn't say "growing"). Zooey might stop learning new skills and seeking new challenges-- at that point, as is sadly too often the case, feline diabetes can set in and wreck the health. And business health-- you cease to like your job, people work less hard, profits slowly decline. Then some Silicon Valley punk shows up with a new model and rips you to shred (it's happening in the newspaper business as we speak).
  

***

Meanwhile, the door seems to be swinging the wrong way in the economy. Ugh! Warren Buffet's one of the fattest of cats, portfolio-wise, so when he speaks we should all listen. I have been optimistic about the market, but perhaps I've been wrong (hard to admit, I'll admit).

Still, my hope is to stay the course somewhat. Half my portfolio's in index funds, so I have little to concern me there. They're long-term investments that seek to replicate the market; I just hope the market doesn't seek to replicate a busted toilet.

The other half, though, is individual stock investing. I have just a handful of positions-- less than ten-- and only one of my stocks got absolutely killed. But I believe in the company and their model, and want to hold on to it long-term. I'm waiting for even more of a pullback, in fact, before I act, though. We could have even more shrinkage...

Most importantly, on economic days like today, sit on the back porch and drink a mimosa. Really-- it's why we invest & save, right?

Cat Skills Assessment

As many of you know, my cat Zooey has decided to help out monetarily. But she's become discouraged after her initial enthusiasm. It is hard to find work in this world, especially when you're a cat.

Yesterday she threw up all over the deck. I was worried-- stress is pretty bad, and now the deck is too. I could hear her up late last night. When I woke up I found this on the computer screen:


What an amazing cat! As an outdoor cat, she must have had a copy of the housekey made when I wasn't looking.

She had gone through my self-help books, and opened up Loral Langemeier's Millionaire Maker's Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Lifeto a self-help skills assessment early in the book. So we sat down this morning and worked through it to give her some direction. This is a short version of it, so you can have an idea of what it's like:

1. List your job responsibilities:

• eating
• coyness
• sleeping
• stalking through lawn & forest as mistress of all i survey

2. List the tasks associated with these responsibilities:

• monitoring small animals
• climbing trees
• somber frolic
  

3. List the industries and markets you have experience in:

• pets
• hunting
• food service

4. List the tasks you do at home:

• tongue-bathing
• resting
  

5. List the activities you find you do in spare time

• rubbing face against lawn furniture
• marking territory
• leering at Mr MacMuffin through his living room window, especially at night when the terror sets in

6. List the tasks others ask you to help them w/

• pest control
• relationship problems
• money problems
• emotional problems
• family problems

7. List the tasks you're good at & may take for granted

• sharpening claws
• furniture control
• consulting.
  

That's her list. Honestly, I'm a little surprised at some of her answers, but she is an outdoor cat, after all. And the Cash Machine book is interesting-- I'll have my full review up tomorrow!