Book Summary: the dip by Seth Godin
A neat little summary for a phenomenal little book on when to quit things in life.
Rating: 10/10
Who should read: Everyone, ever. We will all need to quit things.
Summary: If you can’t be the best at something, quit.
If you are in a dip never quit, unless you are in a cul-de-sac (dead-end), in which case quit immediately.
Settling for average / trying to wait out the dip is worse than quitting in the dip.
Establish the conditions of quitting before starting.
Determine resources necessary to get through the dip before starting and assess the overall cost so that you can decide to start or not.
Quit the wrong stuff
Stick with the right stuff.
Have the guts to do one or the other.
Be the best in the world — The market rewards the person who is best. If you’re not going to be the best, QUIT.
Best as in: best for you, right now, based on what you believe and what you know
in the world = in your world. The world is defined by other people, just as you define the world for yourself.
The world is getting bigger with the internet.
The world is also getting smaller because of niches and specialization.
The world is also defined by availability and affordability…who can afford you? The best person in my world is the one I can also afford.
Godin asserts strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations.
Curve 1: The Dip
“The dip is the long slog between starting and mastery” [and is your shortcut to your results in disguise].
The dip is set up to keep you out.
“It’s easy to be a CEO. What’s hard is getting there.”
Important note: successful people lean into the dip, not just ride it out
Curve 2: The cul-de-sac
aka the dead end
Things don’t get better and they don’t get worse. It’s a dead end.
If you find yourself in a cul-de-sac, GTFO :)
Curve 3: The Cliff
You can’t quit until you fall off, and then the whole thing falls apart.
i.e. cigarettes.
If it’s worth doing, there’s probably a dip
dips create scarcity, and scarcity creates value.
SG: The biggest obstacle to success in life is our inability to quit these curves [cul-de-sac and cliff] soon enough.
Questions to ask:
What’s the point of sticking it out if you’re not going to get the benefits of being the best in the world?
Are you over investing time and money so that you can have a much greater chance of dominating the market?
And if you don’t have enough time and money do you have the guts to pick a different, smaller market to conquer?
The brave thing to do is to tough it out and end up on the other side of the dip where you benefit from being the best in the world.
The smart thing to do is not even bother starting something too difficult or that you’re ill-equipped to make it through The Dip of.
The stupid thing to do is to start something, give it your best, waste time and money, and quit right in the middle of the dip.
The dip is your best friend…what makes it difficult is what makes it hard to replace you.
“The dip is the reason you’re here.”
“The lie of diversification — what woodpeckers know” — The woodpecker would get nowhere if he tapped 20 times on a thousand tree but gets dinner when he taps 20,000 times on a single tree.
“It’s easier to be mediocre than it is to confront reality and quit.” (in fact, this is the biggest trap)
Think of weight training…You do eight reps so that you can get the benefits from pushing through the last two. Winners do not give up in the dip.
Simple rule: If you can’t make it through the dip, don’t start
To be a superstar, find a field with a steep dip — “a barrier between those who try and those who succeed.”
You also need to quit all the cul-de-sacs you’re idling your way through.
7 Reasons You Might Fail to Become Best in the World:
- You run out of time (and quit)
- You run out of money (and quit)
- You get scared (and quit)
- You’re not serious about it (and quit)
- You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit)
- You focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard)
- You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don’t have the talent) *
*unlikely unless going after something where you most likely need some God-given gift. i.e. concert cellist.
“The good thing about the above list is that you can plan for them. You can know before you start whether or not you have the resources to get to the end”
8 Dip Curves:
There are systems that are dependent on dips. Use this knowledge to decide whether or not to start.
- Manufacturing dip — hard to manufacture at scale
- Sales Dip — hard to upgrade to a pro sales force
- Education dip — hard to learn something new, to reinvent or rebuild your skills.
- Risk dip — entrepreneurial ventures are risky. Know the difference between investing to get through the dip and investing in something that is a crapshoot
- Relationship Dip — To get what you want out of relationships with people and organizations requires hard work upfront and relationship building when it’s difficult. Think long term
- Conceptual dip — Heroes who reinvent themselves and industries have to abandon the operating assumptions of their world and get through to the other side when no one believes.
- Ego dip — It’s easier when it’s all about you. It’s harder when you have to give up control to the organization. Give up control and spotlight.
- Distribution dip — Getting into big distribution channels is hard (like walmart, big retailers, etc.)
SG: Don’t build a space shuttle. It’s a cul-de-sac. It exists because no one has the guts to cancel it. “Day to day, it’s easier to stick with something that we’re used to, that doesn’t make too many waves, that doesn’t hurt”. [we have however, decommissioned the space shuttle]
Quitting is not a moral failing. Quitting frees you up to get through the dips that matter.
Average is for losers.
Sometimes instead of quitting, we do the worst thing — get mediocre. You will never average your way to success.
You only have 2 good choices: Quit or be exceptional
Serial quitters are people that start things and quit in the dip only to start something else and quit in the dip because they didn’t plan for it. Serial quitters waste a lot of time and energy (and money) they could have allocated towards getting through a dip [probably an earlier dip they quit] and becoming successful.
At the supermarket there are 3 types of strategies for choosing a checkout line:
- Choose the shortest line and stick to it.
- Choose the shortest line and switch lines at once (max) if something holds up your line
- Choose the shortest line and keep scanning other lines. Switch lines if a shorter one appears.
Do not be the person that adopts strategy 3…that’s a serial quitter.
[I find this is also true in traffic.]
“Please Understand this: If you’re not able to get through the Dip in an exceptional way, you must quit. and quit right now”. The example used was a salesperson who quits on prospects after something like the 5th attempt when they would have closed on the 7th attempt, in part because people know the intention of salespeople and can sense when there isn’t a genuine interest to provide that individual with the specific product or service (so does this person care about my individual well-being or just their sales commission?).
Dip of market acceptance. [Definitely a hard one]. Marketers who get rewarded are the ones who don’t quit. Nurture the market to get through the dip (unless it’s the wrong market or product).
It won’t happen overnight. Don’t be seduced by tales of overnight or chance successes.
Quit your product or feature or design, but don’t quit a market or a strategy or a niche. The market wants to see you persist. It demands to know you’re serious, powerful, accepted, and safe. Quit your tactics, not your vision.
The opposite of quitting is rededication. An invigorated new strategy designed to break the problem apart. Because the dip is not static. It responds to the effort you put in. Challenge authority. Attempt unattempted alternatives. Lean into the problem. i.e. guy ready to quit goes into bosses office and leaves with a promotion after challenging the authority and speaking honestly —knowing he is ready to quit allows him to be bold in ways he’d not have been otherwise.
“No one quits the Boston marathon at Mile 25.” Who quits when the finish line is in sight? Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when other’s can’t see it. & the smartest people are realistic about not imagining light when there isn’t any.
? to ask: “Is the pain of the Dip worth the benefit of light at the end of the tunnel?”
Quit if you’re on a dead-end path.
Quit if you’re facing a cliff.
Quit if the project you’re working on has a dip that isn’t worth the reward at the end.
Quit if you’re settling for being average.
“Quitting as a short term strategy is a bad idea. Quitting for the long term is an excellent idea.”
“Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.”
“Pride is the enemy of the smart quitter” — [A derivative of ego, your pride will be alright from quitting and the associated stigma. Get over it].
Three questions to ask before quitting:
- Am I Panicking? — When the pressure is greatest to compromise, to drop out, or to settle, your desire to quit should be at its lowest. [From Gerard Butler in Chasing Mavericks — Don’t confuse fear with panic. If you panic, you die.]
- Who am I trying to influence? — “If you’re considering quitting, it’s almost certainly because you’re not being successful at your current attempt at influence.” Trying to influence one person has its limits. One person or organization will behave differently from an entire market. The rules are different for a market. Most people in the market have not even heard of you. Think of the market as a hill that can be climbed step by step.
- What sort of measurable progress am I making? — if you’re trying to succeed you are either 1. Moving forward; 2. Falling behind; 3. Standing still. You have to be making some sort of forward progress.You could be doing something far better, and far more pleasurable with your time. If your business doesn’t generate word of mouth, doesn’t see new customers, and isn’t moving forward, why exactly are you sticking with it? People that you hear of sticking it out are from stories of people going through the market.
Decide in advance when you’re going to quit.
“You’re astonishing. How dare you waste it.” — Seth Godin
Kudos to you for not quitting in the dip of this summary! 🏆
You’re now well on your way to being exceptional. 😉
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