Platypus Bottom

Last week, a friend of mine sent me a link to an article on Slate by Chadwick Matlin about "platypus bottom", the newest animal metaphor on Wall Street.

As the story goes, stock market analyst Art Cashin, speaking on CNBC about the current low of the stock market, suggested that rather than being a traditional bear-bull market cycle, this "might be more of a platypus bottom." It's not the first time he used the phrase. A week before, he told CNBC: "The trouble with this one is . this isn't a normal-looking bottom. It might be a platypus bottom. It might just be something strange we've never seen before."

While images of a platypus' backside might not get you thinking about the stock market, that's not what he's referring to. In fact, there's nothing extraordinary about a platypus' hindquarters. But there is something extraordinary about the platypus itself: it's a paradox, unlike anything biologists had ever seen before when it was discovered. It's a mammal, but it lays eggs, has webbed feet and a bill like a duck, and it spends most of its time under water.

So a "platypus bottom" is a bottom that we haven't seen before -- a paradox.

In the case of the stock market, it's conflicting market indicators -- a good jobs report, but a bad manufacturing report. And anyone who follows the market knows that there's nothing it hates more than uncertainty.

Matlin suggests that there might be other life situations that fit the metaphor:

The uses are endless: When somebody goes on a horrific date, but the object of his or her affection still asks to hang out again, it's platypus bottom. When world-class athletes go through a funk and don't know when they'll return to form, they've reached platypus bottom. When a trader loses millions of dollars because of a credit crunch and wonders if the worst of it is finally over: platypus bottom.

This got me to thinking about my own life and if I had ever hit "platypus bottom." Turns out that I definitely had -- about six years ago when I left my last full-time job. See, I've been out of a job before -- several times (most by choice, a couple not). But in my entire career, I had never gone more than about two weeks without either a full-time job or a "bread-and-butter" major consulting client.

So based on past experience, I was highly optimistic that I would either find a full-time job or a major client and things would get back to normal.

But they didn't. A month went by, then two, then six. I had some smaller clients that were keeping food on the table, and I'd had a few interviews, but it was just after the dot-com bust in 2002, and there weren't many opportunities for my skills and experience.

There's a saying: "Necessity is the mother of invention." That's not entirely true. We deal with necessity all the time without inventing anything. We need milk -- we go to the store. We need sleep -- we go to bed. We need love and companionship -- we date and may eventually marry.

Necessity on its own is not the mother of invention. I would contend, rather, "Unfamiliar necessity is the mother of invention." Or, perhaps, "Platypus bottom is the mother of invention."

It's when you hit platypus bottom -- a low point which is new and unfamiliar -- that innovation occurs. It's when you've exhausted every possible solution that you realize that you haven't actually even thought of every possible solution. It's when you can't find a job that satisfies you that you finally decide to pursue your passion and start your own business. It's when you realize that the clients you have aren't really supporting your business and you need to reach a whole new market.

Platypus bottom can be painful, but that doesn't mean you have to be afraid of it. Embrace it as an opportunity for change. And the sooner you can recognize it as such and start exploring new solutions, the sooner you will get out of it, rather than wallowing in it for months.