My name is Michael Sherlock. I am an international leadership speaker and a two-time best-selling author. I am so glad you have decided to follow along on my story of Fred.

In just a moment, you will receive Chapter One of the story, and for those of you who have also purchased the online book of the accompanying 25 leadership lessons, you will receive Lesson One as well.

My first two published books were written in story format.

I enjoy the parable format when it comes to business lessons, so it was fun and easy to write both Tell Me More – How to Ask the Right Questions and Get The Most Out of Your Employees and Sales Mixology – Why the Most Potent Sales & Customer Experiences Follow a Recipe for Success as if they were works of fiction. The format allows you to absorb concepts without it being too text-bookish.

I was working on two other books when Fred came into our lives. I had no intention of writing a book about a feral cat, but as I began to share the story of our journey to bring him into our lives with my Facebook friends, I kept getting comments like the following:

After a few weeks, if I missed a daily post, I was bombarded with texts and DMs asking for updates. We really were “must watch TV.” As I began to document each day more clearly, both for the demands of our followers as well as for my own fascination, I began to pay more attention to the smaller details of our interactions with this hungry, scrappy, feral cat.

I began to notice the subtle dynamics of our breakfasts each day, and the occasional dinner visit. I began to question my tactics to get him to trust me, to dissect his actions and instincts, to devise better methods to move us towards what was quickly becoming my ultimate desire.

To bring him into our family.

Over the course of several failed capture attempts, I also came face to face with a new dimension of myself. I consider myself an expert in communication. I teach communication for a living. And in every workshop or keynote I deliver, I always refer to the fact that we are humans dealing with humans.

When we are trying to lead, influence, cooperate, or collaborate with others, we must never forget that we are humans dealing with humans.

Until I realized I was trying to accomplish all those things…. with a feline.

After all my speaking engagements in front of thousands of people talking about how to communicate better, I was losing a battle with a cat.

That is when the light bulb went off. After the first failed capture attempt, I realized something. In my planned capture, I changed the rules on Fred.

I had been operating in one way consistently with him for 2 months. And then one morning, with the best of intentions and a whole lot of preparation, I turned our entire relationship on its head.

No wonder the first attempt failed. And the second…and the third.

Even though I thought I learned enough on the first failure, and thought I fixed all of my mistakes on the second attempt, and the third…and the fourth, I finally realized the most important lesson of all.

I was trying to deliver on an outcome that wasn’t only up to me. Fred had a role to play. A very important role. I kept trying to figure out and adapt my approach. And I failed to slow down, pay attention, and to learn and understand his needs.

That’s when I realized that to move forward, I had to pause…..or more appropriately, to PAWS.

Each chapter of the story of Fred also has an accompanying leadership lesson.

I call these “A Moment to PAWS.”

These are the places where, in the moment, I recognized that something had to change for success to have a chance.

They were the moments when I had to accept that I was trying to force something to happen from my own sheer force of will rather than remember that, unlike my day-to-day work of human to human, human to feline was very different.

Once I began to recognize that my initial actions were solely focused on MY goals for Fred, I began to accept my responsibility for our failures and our successes.

Until that realization, I had found only frustration and heartache.

Once I accepted that important lesson, we began to find our way to each other.

From a business perspective, I also realized that there were many human/human lessons to be gained from this human/feline relationship. Although the lessons were many, and still are many more than a year later, I have pared them down to 25.

25 Moments to PAWS, that follow each chapter.

Since you’ve decided to join us on this journey, sit back and wait for what comes next. Your next email will include Chapter One and Lesson One.

Then each Tuesday, for the next 24 weeks, you will receive another chapter in your inbox. If you’ve ordered the 25 Moments to PAWS, you’ll receive those as well.

Thank you for being a part of our journey!