Godin, Seth - THE DIP Flashcards
Who accrues extraordinary benefits?
Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.
Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new.
In both cases, it’s about being the best in the world. About getting through the hard stuff and coming out on the other side.
What do you quit and with what do you stick?
Quit the wrong stuff.
Stick with the right stuff.
Have the guts to do one or the other.
What is Zipf’s law?
Zipf’s law applies to résumés and college application rates and best-selling records and everything in between.
Winners win big because the marketplace loves a winner.
What is the reason that number one matters?
People don’t have a lot of time and don’t want to take a lot of risks. With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top.
You want to be going to head straight for the “top guy,” the person who’s ranked the best in the world.
You’re not the only person who looks for the best choice. Everyone does. As a result, the rewards for being first are enormous. It’s not a linear scale. It’s not a matter of getting a little more after giving a little more. It’s a curve, and a steep one.
Another more subtle reason that number one matters?
Being at the top matters because there’s room at the top for only a few.
Scarcity makes being at the top worth something.
Where does the scarcity come from?
It comes from the hurdles that the markets and our society set up.
It comes from the fact that most competitors quit long before they’ve created something that makes it to the top.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be. The system depends on it.
In which world / market should you be the best?
It’s the world the consumer defines, based on his convenience or his preferences. As best is subjectiv, be the best in his world and you have him.
There are a million micromarkets, but each micromarket still has a best. As the mass market is dying being the best in the micromarket world is the place to be.
Why is the world getting larger and smaller at the same time?
The world is getting larger because I can now look everywhere when I want to find something (or someone).
The amount of variety is staggering, and I can define my world to be exactly what I have an interest in—and find my preferences anywhere on the planet.
The world is getting smaller because the categories are getting more specialised.
So while it’s more important than ever to be the best in the world, it’s also easier—if you pick the right thing and do it all the way.
(More places to win, and the stakes are higher, too.)
What is the problem with infinity?
The problem with infinity is that there’s too much of it.
And in just about every market, the number of choices is approaching infinity. Faced with infinity, people panic. Sometimes they don’t buy anything. Sometimes they buy the cheapest one of whatever they’re shopping for. Faced with an infinite number of choices, many people pick the market leader.
The number of job seekers is approaching infinity. So is the number of professional services firms, lawyers, manicure shops, coffee bars, and brands of soap.
Better to be the best.
Why do big companies almost always fail when they try to enter new markets?
The reason is their willingness to compromise.
They figure that because they are big and powerful, they can settle, do less, stop improving something before it is truly remarkable.
They compromise to avoid offending other divisions or to minimize their exposure. So they fail. They fail because they don’t know when to quit and when to refuse to settle.
What about life you learnt in school is wrong?
Just about everything you learned in school about life is wrong, but the wrongest thing might very well be this:
Being well rounded is the secret to success.
In a free market, we reward the exceptional.
The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.
What is the secret of successful organisations?
Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations.
Reactive quitting and serial quitting are the bane of those that strive (and fail) to get what they want.
And most people quit when it’s painful and stick when they can’t be bothered to quit.
Explain curve 1: Tha dip.
Almost everything in life worth doing is controlled by the Dip.
At the beginning, when you first start something, it’s fun, it’s interesting, and you get plenty of good feedback from the people around you.
Over the next few days and weeks, the rapid learning you experience keeps you going.
And then the Dip happens.
The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery.
The Dip is the combination of bureaucracy and busywork you must deal with.
The Dip is the difference between the easy “beginner” technique and the more useful “expert” approach.
The Dip is the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishment.
The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out.
What fo successful people do with the dip?
Successful people don’t just ride out the Dip. They don’t just buckle down and survive it.
No, they lean into the Dip.
They push harder, changing the rules as they go.
Just because you know you’re in the Dip doesn’t mean you have to live happily with it.
Dips don’t last quite as long when you whittle at them.
Explain curve 2: Cul-de-Sac.
The Cul-de-Sac (French for “dead end”) is a situation where you work and you work and you work and nothing much changes. It doesn’t get a lot better, it doesn’t get a lot worse. It just is.
That’s why they call those jobs dead-end jobs.
When you find one, you need to get off it, fast. That’s because a dead end is keeping you from doing something else.
The opportunity cost of investing your life in something that’s not going to get better is just too high.
The Cul-de-Sac leads to failure.
If you find yourself facing the Cul-de-Sac you need to quit. Not soon, but right now. The biggest obstacle to success in life, is our inability to quit these curves soon enough.
Explain curve 3: The Cliff.
A Cliff is a situation where you can’t quit until you fall off, and the whole thing falls apart.
Most of the time, the other two curves are in force.
The Dip and the Cul-de-Sac aren’t linear. They don’t spoon feed you with little bits of improvement every day. And they’re just waiting to trip you up.
The cliff leads to failure.
If you find yourself facing the cliff you need to quit. Not soon, but right now. The biggest obstacle to success in life, is our inability to quit these curves soon enough.
What is the secret to your success?
The Dip is the secret to your success.
The people who set out to make it through the Dip—the people who invest the time and the energy and the effort to power through the Dip—those are the ones who become the best in the world.
They are breaking the system because, instead of moving on to the next thing, instead of doing slightly above average and settling for what they’ve got, they embrace the challenge.
For whatever reason, they refuse to abandon the quest and they push through the Dip all the way to the next level
Is quitting when you hit the Dip a good idea?
No.
Quitting when you hit the Dip is a bad idea.
If the journey you started was worth doing, then quitting when you hit the Dip just wastes the time you’ve already invested.
Quit in the Dip often enough and you’ll find yourself becoming a serial quitter, starting many things but accomplishing little.
Simple: If you can’t make it through the Dip, don’t start.
How can you be a superstar?
If you want to be a superstar, then you need to find a field with a steep Dip—a barrier between those who try and those who succeed.
And you’ve got to get through that Dip to the other side.
The Dip is actually your greatest ally because it makes the project worthwhile (and keeps others from competing with you).
Not only do you need to find a Dip that you can conquer but you also need to quit all the Cul-de-Sacs that you’re currently idling your way through.
You must quit the projects and investments and endeavors that don’t offer you the same opportunity.
Can you plan for success?
Yes.
The important thing to remember about these seven things is that you can plan for them. You can know before you start whether or not you have the resources and the will to get to the end.
Most of the time, if you fail to become the best in the world, it’s either because you planned wrong or because you gave up before you reached your goal.
Is it possible that you’re just not good enough? That you (or your team) just don’t have enough talent to be the best in the world? Sure it’s possible.
In just about every relevant area I can think of, no, it’s not likely. You are good enough. The question is, will you take the shortcut you need to get really good at this?
To be a superstar, you must do something exceptional. Not just survive the Dip, but use the Dip as an opportunity to create something so extraordinary that people can’t help but talk about it, recommend it, and, yes, choose it.
Which are the Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the 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).
Note:
By “you” I mean your team, your company, or just plain you, the job seeker, the employee, or the entrepreneur.
How is average?
Average Is for Losers.
Quitting at the right time is difficult. Most of us don’t have the guts to quit. Worse, when faced with the Dip, sometimes we don’t quit. Instead, we get mediocre.
The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional.
Average is for losers.
Average feels safe, but it’s not. It’s invisible. It’s the last choice—the path of least resistance. The temptation to be average is just another kind of quitting…the kind to be avoided.
Note:
You deserve better than average.
How did Microsoft get through the dip?
Very quietly Microsofts gone from version 1 to version 2, knowing that by version 3, the world will be a different (and better) place for them.
Microsoft failed twice with Windows, four times with Word, three times with Excel.
The entire company is based on the idea of slogging through the Dip, relentlessly changing tactics but never quitting the big idea.
What is the opposite of quitting?
The opposite of quitting is rededication.
The opposite of quitting is an invigorated new strategy designed to break the problem apart.
The Dip is flexible. It responds to the effort you put into it. In fact, it’s quite likely (in almost every case) that aggressive action on your part can make the Dip a lot worse. Or a lot better.
When the pain gets so bad that you’re ready to quit, you’ve set yourself up as someone with nothing to lose. And someone with nothing to lose has quite a bit of power. You can go for broke. Challenge authority. Attempt unattempted alternatives. Lean into a problem; lean so far that you might just lean right through it.
