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| The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) | 
 enlarge | Author: Seth Godin
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 2002
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 96
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 1591841666
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.1
EAN: 9781591841661
ASIN: 1591841666
Publication Date: May 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Small Book Enormous Lesson May 10, 2007
12 out of 19 found this review helpful
Kenny Rogers in his famous song The Gambler said "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run."
Seth tells you how to know when do do each.
Seth Godin clearly demonstrates why many times quitting is the smartest thing you can do for your business or for your career, but it is only true if you are stuck in a cul de sac, not in a dip. Big results happen in dips. And, creating a dip behind you can make competing with you very difficult and not enticing.
In addition to talking about The Dip, Seth demonstrates why superstar thinking is important, why it is sometimes important that you offend people and make yourself stand out. He says that the worst thing you learned in school is to be a well rounded student. Superstars are intensely focused in one specific area. You don't care that your accountant is a good driver or a good golfer, you care that she is masterful at doing your taxes.
The book is a very fast read but the lessons are to be studied again and again. And, as you begin realizing where your dip is, Seth outlines the steps you can take to get the results you really desire for your business, for your career, or for your life.
A lot of people will think that this is a book all about quitting from the title, but in fact, it is a book about the actions to take when you feel like quitting . . . and knowing when you are stuck in a cul de sac and need to quit to get ahead.
Seth is the master of observing what is happening in businesses and culture and giving them names. But he is even more masterful at giving those identified challenges powerful solutions. The dip is no exception.
[...]
Dave Lakhani
Author
Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want
Power of An Hour: Business and Life Mastery in One Hour A Week
 Simple prescription (too simple?) September 6, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Much of Godin's advice makes sense, although it's not especially original. Know when you're going to quit and have an exit strategy. Don't get stuck in a cul-de-sac: a dead end.
Those who focus on a market or skill do reap greater rewards than those who generalize. Among scholars, picking a tiny slice and expanding will reap big rewards. Remove distractions from your life.
Godin's power curves are very convincing. There is a huge difference between Number 1 and Number 2 when you look at ice cream flavors and box office sales. But sometimes a decision to rank lower can be strategic. Some gurus advise against aiming to be Number 1 or 2 on a search engine, because you'll get more tire-kicking clicks.
Much of Godin's advice makes sense for individual as well as corporate career planning. Most careers have dips. Many people find themselves in cul de sacs. What he calls "the cliff" resembles a comfort zone: "The longer you do it, the harder to quit." As a career consultant, I think the cliff is far more common than Godin suggests.
Two problems with this book:
(1)In real life, it's often hard to distinguish between a cul de sac and a dip and careers often morph from one to the other without warning.
In fact, the book's examples inadvertently demonstrate this ambiguity. On page 38, Godin suggests that the helpful mailroom clerk might rise to CEO. On page 62, Doug gets branded because he's been with the company too long: everyone remembers when he started.
We should note that Jeffrey Pfeffer's book, What Were They Thinking, actually contradicts Godin's tips on pages 38-39: Pfeffer suggests that CEO wannabes *not* suck it up but instead stand out. He argues that the behaviors needed to climb to the top are not those needed to succeed once you've arrived, specifically adding that climbers tend to be disliked by their peers along the way.
(2)I almost stopped reading when I read about Hannah, the law student who became a Supreme Court justice presumably because she worked hard and stayed focused. On page 8, Godin writes that any of 42,000 law graduates could have become Supreme Court justices. Hannah worked hard and made sacrifices to reach this goal.
This statement is simply not accurate. A simple Internet search would have revealed the fact that nearly all Supreme Court clerks tend to come from the top 5 or 6 law schools. As recently as 1998, journalists reported that few women and even fewer minorities were chosen. I suspect age makes a difference as well.
(3) This book is a pithy prescription, deliberately simple so as not to obscure the message. But are we better off when those who want to succeed have to jump through artificial hoops? Do the hoops really encourage the best and the brightest? For example, many experts suggest that education courses discourage many potential teachers, who turn to other fields.
Finally, there really is no happily ever after. Sometimes you can work hard, do everything right and get caught up in mergers and events that are completely unrelated to your performance. Other times you make a casual, easy choice because it sounds like fun and you reap major rewards.
Good advice yet hardly groundbreaking June 22, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
When I read the title of this book I couldn't help but checking it out. What I found made me think for a little while. The gist of Godin's "The Dip" makes for more than a good theory, more than a self-help title: it's some great advice in a world where quitting is something that others typically frown upon. Yet, according to him, it may be the best thing to do, given certain conditions are met. He suggests that you decide in advance what those conditions will be, so that you don't choose to leave some unfinished business in the midst of an emotional burst.
In general, while the book doesn't take too much time to process (you will hardly need to spend more than a couple of hours on it), you end up feeling the message could have easily been relayed in a shorter format (long blog posts, anybody?). If you can, check it out in the library or (cough, cough!) while sipping a nice Latte (or two) at your local bookstore.
Keep Going Through the Dip to Become Number One, But Quit If Results Aren't Ever Going to Improve May 10, 2007
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Do you remember starting something new that interested you? Chances are the world seemed a little brighter, a little more inviting, and your smile was a little wider that day.
Now, remember how that same activity seemed after six months had passed. It's likely you weren't having as much fun; progress was hard to accomplish; and frustration was starting to build. That's what a dip feels like.
That sequence is the normal experience and psychology of creating worthwhile results.
But in some cases, you are headed for a dead end where results will never amount to much (if you ever see me play golf, you'll know what I'm talking about). In rarer cases, results just keep going downhill forever (if you've seen me run lately, you'll get the idea).
Many people make mistakes when "the going gets tough."
1. Some will keep going even though future results won't reward the effort (such as those who keep trying to master something for which they have little ability). This behavior is usually the result of bad habits (like always following tradition . . . or existing beliefs) I call "stalls" that harm progress.
2. Others will quit before they break through into improvements that make an enormous difference (going through a dip) and miss the chance to get great benefits from continuing, well-focused effort. The "best in the world" (or "best in your corner of the world") will get a disproportionate share of the benefits from what everyone does. Who is going to pay much attention to the 1,000,001 ranked book reviewer on Amazon? People who behave this way are usually suffering from the procrastination, bureaucracy, ugly duckling or disbelief stalls (see The 2,000 Percent Solution).
In past books by Mr. Godin, I've criticized him for taking an article and stretching it too far into a book. I've also mentioned that he sometimes forgets to explain what to do.
In The Dip, Mr. Godin has broken through his dip and avoided both of those problems. This book is only slightly longer than it needed to be. It has excellent advice on how to tell the difference between future potential and lack of opportunity. The point about disproportionate rewards is also well developed.
Nice going, Mr. Godin!
Buck Up! Be a Man! And Quit! May 11, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Or so says Seth Godin in his latest. If you are wasting away in whatever you are pursuing, stop digging a dry hole and get out. He gives sound advice with 3 questions to ask before quitting(a key one is to know the difference between one potential customer blowing you off vs. the market doing it); demonstrates why coming to the end of your rope is often a blessing(he who has little to lose often has the greatest freedom); and rightly assails the dumb stories we are told as children(and keep telling ourselves) that we must be well rounded(code for being average in a lot of things) and that winners never quit and quiters never win(it hurts to even type that; it should be rephrased as never quit anything with long term potential just because of the stress of the moment, but only get into something in the first place where you have potential). There are others ideas on the value of focus vs. the perils of diversification and the emergence of micromarkets. All in all, reading this slim volume is like having a good talk with a friend over drinks.
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