Once a term reserved exclusively for television sitcoms, “jumping the shark” has become the moniker-à- la-mode for anyone who’s reached a certain level of success, as demonstrated by insane word of mouth and bountiful speaking engagements.

Success somehow marks one as a peaked man (or woman), no more capable of improvement than a 10-year-old TV sitcom.

Jumping the shark has jumped the shark.

It’s time for this metaphor to die.

How many episodes of Gilligan’s Island does anyone need to watch before thinking, “Okay, I get it. You’re never getting off the island. The Professor and Mary Ann will never be a thing. And Skipper is never going to move his hammock so Gilligan doesn’t keep falling on top of him. That’s just the way it is.”

A show can’t wake up one morning and decide it wants to be a mermaid. It can’t keep getting better without becoming another show entirely. There are only so many plot-lines to explore.

To change, a show would first need permission from dozens of other people, the suits, major corporations, sponsors, networks.

Also, if a show isn’t wildly successful, eventually it gets pulled off the air.

Not true for businesses.

Our businesses, ourselves.

Unlike a sitcom, a person can do whatever the heck they want to do—in life and in business. It’s not possible for an individual to cease to have the capacity to become infinitely better.

Businesses meet real needs. Businesses solve real problems. They can change to meet changing needs and changing problems. They do it all the time.

Businesses don’t need to stay famous. They don’t have to be on TV every other day. They don’t have to attend parties and get their name in magazines. They just have to keep solving problems and doing great work and making themselves, their people, and their customers happy.

A business can be unknown by 99.99999% of the internet, and do very well for itself. I know plenty of insanely profitable consultants who aren’t and never plan to be internet famous.

They’re doing just fine, and don’t need household-name fame to make a difference.

A so-called shark-jumper could decide tomorrow to become a painter. And what could anyone really say about it?

When Walt Whitman decided to quit his job as a low-level reporter, his journalist peers likely viewed him with disdain. He stopped being a reporter so he could write poems, which he then self-published. I’m sure that sounded as bad then as it does now. That first book of poems didn’t exactly pave the way to riches, and he had to go back to work as a reporter again just to make ends meet.

Today, no one talks about Walt Whitman, the mediocre reporter who jumped the shark. His poetry changed everything.

So, maybe you’re not Walt Whitman (he might disagree with that—for he is large and contains multitudes). But even if you did peak with the thing you’re doing, it’s possible the thing you create its place is so remarkable it changes the world—or at least a tiny piece of the world.

When it comes to shark-jumping, let Fonzie do the honors. We’ve got work to do.