Book Review – The Dip

I’ve been following Seth Godin’s blog off an on for about 6 months now.  Can’t remember what got me there, but the man has a simple, down-to-earth simplicity about how to be successful that I keep coming back.  On the surface, he’s talking about the world of Marketing, but there’s a deeper level to his ideas — how to apply them to your own career.  Each of us in Job Search mode is marketing ourselves, so how can we stand out better?  With this in mind, a couple months ago I bought his book The Dip.  Finally got round to reading it this week.

First off, the book itself is only 80 pages long, and took me two evenings to complete.  For those of you that think you don’t have time for reading, this one is short, succinct, and well worth your time.

Who should read it?  Everyone — this is not just for marketers or CEOs.  This is for everyone.  It’s lessons apply in any sort of life situation — career, entrepreneurship, learning a new skill, or when pondering a big life change.  It’s also a very well written book — Seth mentions at the end that it’s his readers that have helped him write LESS to write better. 

The gist of the book is this — it’s OK to quit if you think that there is no long-term potential for going down a certain path — he calls this strategic quitting.  The Dip itself is “the long slog between starting and mastery.” 

A Cul-de-Sac, on the other hand, is a dead-end with no growth potential that will get you nowhere in the long run.  Get out of (QUIT) the cul-de-sacs which suck your energy and creativity and keep you average.  Focus on The Dips where you can succeed —  with big long-term payouts that will make you a Superstar. 

Quitting is not Failure.  Seth says, “I’d rather have you focus on quitting (or not quitting) as a go-up opportunity.  It’s not about avoiding the humiliation of failure.  Even more important, you can realize that quitting the stuff you don’t care about or the stuff you’re mediocre at or better yet quitting the Cul-de-Sacs frees up your resources to obsess about the Dips that matter.  If you’re going to quit, quit before you start.  Reject the system.  Don’t play the game if you realize you can’t be the best in the world.”

Having finished the book yesterday, I’ve been pondering my dips…

The first Dip that I’m aware of that I quit, when I wish (now, with 30 years hindsight) I’d stuck out — learning to play the piano.  I was 9, I was good at it, I had an ear for music, I LOVE  listening to classical piano, and I had my grandmother’s old piano at our house to practice on, as well as her as a mentor.  But, I got 6 months in to the point where I really needed to practice (the long slog) to get better, and I didn’t want to do it.  It was boring, it was hard, it wasn’t fun…  To this day, I remember clearly my grandmother’s disappointment and her warning to me that “20 years from now, you’ll regret this.”  She was right.

Another HUGE Dip — grad school.  I didn’t have any prior business experience, but my Russian language skills got me into the Master of International Business Studies at University of South Carolina – Columbia.  I was cruising along during the first summer of classes, which was all intensive language studies.  My Russian was good, dangit.  I aced the summer term. 

Then, the first night of homework for Accounting I fell splat on my face in the Dip.  I had understood everything so well during class that first day, but absolutely nothing was making sense with those three accounting problems…I was in a panic — here I had signed my life away in student loans, and had all of maybe $500 dollars to my name, was estranged from my family, and thousands of miles from any friends…

Luckily, when I went into class the next day, someone else asked before class started if anyone else was as lost as him and wanted to start a study group.  That led to several of us banding together and we slogged through the next two semesters together, step by grueling step.  We all graduated, and I was so proud of myself 3 years ago when the final student-loan repayment went through.  I did it!  And my GPA was higher in grad school (3.8) than in college (3.7)!

So now I’m wondering what’s ahead, with a whole new framework to help me evaluate what to focus my energies on.  One Dip I know I’m facing lately is to stick with this blog and slog through writer’s block (hence no posts for over a week). 

What is your Dip?