There is or at least there was this famous company started by three Israelis that literally crashed onto the American jeans market in the 1970s taking on long-established companies like Levi Strauss and Lee.

The secret to their success was that they worked backwards.

What did they do?

They took out full-page ads in every major American magazine and newspaper from the New York Times and down and bombarded the airways with their new company’s jingle about their product “Jordache Jeans.” And people all over the country started going in droves to clothing stores asking for Jordache Jeans. So many people asked for them that the salesmen reported it to their managers who reported it to their supervisors who reported it to the buyers who reported it to the owners. Who started frantically calling Jordache for orders. Orders in the millions. Which Jordache wasn’t even set up to handle.

But very quickly Jordache became Number One.

I heard another great “working backwards” story about this woman who dressed for Shabbos.

She was a certified shlumper. Even her tichel wouldn’t stay straight but she’d just insist her head was crooked. Then she had guests for Shabbos guests who were staying over. One of these guests wasn’t feeling well but kept saying she had to get dressed to honor the Shabbos. And her hostess the one whose tichel was always crooked watched as this woman who barely had the strength to eat made sure to be dressed beautifully to light her candles.

The following week our hostess with the crooked tichel happened to be in town browsing when a certain store drew her attention. She goes in and in four minutes finds two Shabbos outfits that fit perfectly. For twenty years she’s been searching for just one and now she’s found two in four minutes. On sale. $30 each.

I call this working backwards.

The same thing happened to me once about eighteen years ago. We had this free-standing clothes closet whose shelves kept falling down. Every time I’d finish folding and organizing the last piece of clothing and stood back to get that momentary feeling of glorious accomplishment for a job well done the shelves would collapse.

Believe it or not I did this for about a year until one day I said “Enough is enough.” Within seconds I dissembled the closet knowing that anything — even nothing! — would be better than this.

About an hour later I get a call from my friend down the road.

“I don’t know what to do” she says “we’re going back to the States and I have this huge brand-new closet which we just bought to get rid of.”

To which I say “Bring it over here.”

I call this working backwards.

Yesterday I’ m in the silver store looking for a present for someone while the people standing next to me are talking about shidduchim and how they’re there to buy a Kiddush cup for their daughter’s chassan.

“Mazel Tov” I say naturally.

“Thank you” they answer warmly” but we haven’t found him just yet.” They notice I’m looking at the large silver cup they’re holding “That’s why we’re buying the cup.”

I call this working backwards.