Book Review: The Dip by Seth Godin

 Every once in a while a book comes along that despite a seemingly simple subject ends up being a very impactful and thought provoking book.  Seth Godin's "the dip" proves to be exactly that type of book.

"the dip" is all about understanding opportunities and yourself; there are many things we can all spend our time doing, but how many of them can you be the absolute best?  And how do you tell the difference between the struggle before success and the slow, painful death-march to failure?

As the book cover suggest, there's really two parts, which I'll highlight now: When to Quit and When to Stick.

When to Quit?

Are you the best at what you do? Do you think you have a chance to become the best? If you answered "no" to both of those, then you shouldn't be investing significant time in it. In the era of participation trophies and all-inclusiveness, this is bold thinking; Seth subscribes to a hardcore reinterpretation of Master Yoda's famous saying, "Do or do not. There is no try."  

The fact is, we all only have so many hours in the day to be productive and accomplish things. With limited resources comes a responsibility to ourselves and others to maximize that time in efforts that will yield the greatest results.

Now this doesn't mean you should never try something new; rather, it means you need to recognize when you can pour yourself into something and become great at it and when you have no chance; we may all want to be Albert Pujols, but the fact is, I could train non stop for the next 2 years and still have no shot at the major leagues. At the same time, I have a growing understanding of customers and community and now I have a chance to become great at that thanks to my job at oneforty.

The bottom line: Aspire to greatness and set your sights on working to become great at whatever you pursue.  Quit if you realize you cannot become the best.

When to Stick?

When you're working to become great at something you're doing, there is always a "dip" that comes as you try to gain mastery.  Whether it's the struggle to fix your golf swing or to have your startup gain market traction, there are dark days you have to push through. The key is to recognize when you're actually going through a "dip" and when it's actually a dead end (or "cul de sac" as Seth calls it).  

I remember when we first launched our alpha site for Greenhorn Connect and I was trying to sell people on the site and my vision, most people rolled there eyes. Even some of my best friends in the community have admitted they said to themselves, "who the heck is this kid and what does he think he's doing?"  But we stuck with it, kept building the site out pushed through "the dip."  It seems strangely fitting that as I finished "the dip" and reflected on Greenhorn Connect's journey through the dip, we were covered by Xconomy.  

It's always hard to quit.  Especially as entrepreneurs, it can be downright painful to give up on an idea or a project.  Ariel Diaz recently wrote about shutting his site down and within that you can see where they really tried to make it through the dip, but they finally gave in when it felt like they were in a "cul de sac."  The ability to recognize this is the key to being successful. Spending another 6 months trying to make YouCastr work would have only slowed Ariel's move to what I'm sure will be a very successful next startup.

Bottom Line: There are always dark days when you're working hard on a new challenge. The key is to recognize if that challenge is going to eventually pay off and yield results or if you're driving straight to nowhere.  

Seth's book, "the dip," may be much shorter than most books you'll read, but it's brevity is an asset, not a weakness; there is plenty of food for thought crammed into its pages and since it's so short, even the most busy entrepreneur should be able to squeeze in some time to breeze through it.