Stories That End in Fish Tails

Julie started out learning a new skill. She made herself a commitment: “practice until you’re good”. One day, she got the news. She had lost her job.

Phillip chose to part ways with the past. He made a list: from now on, less of these things I don’t like, more of these things that I like. There was a shuffle at his client’s organization and his main contact left.

Jessie was sure to be on an upswing with the new SaaS app. The new marketing campaign was a hit. Appearances on podcasts. Customer churn stable, a bit down… holding up okay! One of the service providers the app depends on, however, just announced their funding round didn’t go through. They’re shutting down, end of the year, leaving a hole to fill for Jessie.

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In French, we have an expression for these types of stories, stories that go off the rails: “Une histoire qui termine en queue de poisson”. A story that ends in a fish tail.

Those stories don’t make any sense. They fall flat. They leave us hanging. We require an ending, and there isn’t one.

To the person going through such a story, however, they go through the turbulence without any guarantee. There’s unknown, disbelief, confusion, reaction. They’re the subject of a bad story.

And these stories might not even end well. There could be an even bigger mess.

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The entrepreneur, the owner, the inventor, the freelancer, the initiator, the leader, the coach, the front-line worker, the author, the artist and the creative.

All of these (all of us) are starters of stories. We don’t mind being the subject of the story, we don’t mind being the main protagonist, in the mix, with the ups and the downs. We decided we were going to take the risk.

Possibly the biggest responsability of the protagonist, for the rest of society, is to add to the story, to finish the story.

Julie continued to master the skill, and it became second nature to her. She developed taste and confidence, and eventual got a better job. Phillip replayed what made that main client contact click, and with the self-knowledge he recently gained, was able to find and attract similar people in other companies. Jessie decided to post about the misfortune with his app’s main supplier dependency, and banded with others in the same boat to develop an alternative, which became a new product they now sell.

People seek a good ending, and if you choose to continue despite falling flat, they’ll tune in for the rest of it.