Book Summaries

Here is a sampling of some of the books that have made a special impact at CCiPH, and that have been transcribed or written in manuscript. 

Mostly it is made up of quoted significant paragraphs from the book. Occasionally there are also personal comments or applications, especially at the beginning and the end of the summary.

by Seth Godin

THE DIP: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

by Seth Godin (Do You Zoom 2007)

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[sic] with the guys to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new.

In both bases, it’s about being the best in the world. About getting through the hard stuff and coming out on the other side.

Quit the wrong stuff.

Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.

The Reason Number One Matters

With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top. . . . 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.

Anyone who is going to hire you, buy from you, recommend you, vote for you, or do what you want them to do is going to wonder if you’re the best choice.

Best as in: best for them, right now, based on what they believe and what they know. And in the world as in: their world, the world they have access to.

The Biggest Mistake They Made in School

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.

How often do you look for someone who is actually quite good at the things you don’t need her to do? How often do you hope that your accountant is a safe driver and a decent golfer?

In a free market, we reward the exceptional.

Most people will tell you that you need to persevere—to try harder, put in more hours, get more training, and work hard. “Don’t quit!” they implore. But if all you need to do to succeed is not quit, then why do organizations less motivated than yours succeed? Why do individuals less talented than you win?

It involves understanding the architecture of quitting, and, believe it or not, it means quitting a lot more than you do now.

CURVE 1: THE 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. Whatever your new thing is, it’s easy to stay engaged in it.

And then the Dip happens.

The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery. A long slog that’s actually a shortcut, because it gets you where you want to go faster than any other path.

The Dip is the combination of bureaucracy and busywork you must deal with in order to get certified . . . the difference between the easy “beginner” technique and the more useful “expert” approach . . . the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishment . . . the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out.

At the beginning, . . . you get all sorts of positive feedback and support. . . . But soon, the incredible grind . . . kicks in, and you realize you’re doomed.

IMPORTANT NOTE: 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.

CURVE 2: THE CUL-DO-SAC

The Cul-de-Sac (French for “dead end”) is so simple it doesn’t even need a chart. It’s 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.

There’s not a lot to say about the Cul-de-Sac except to realize that it exists and to embrace the fact that 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.

Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources. That’s it.

If you find yourself facing [this] curve, you need to quit. Not soon, but right now. The biggest obstacle to success in life, as far as I can tell, is our inability to quit these curves soon enough.

I mean, you know it, but my guess is that you’re not doing anything about it. When it comes right down to it, right down to the hard decisions, are you quitting any project that isn’t a Dip? Or is it just easier not to rock the boat, to hang in there, to avoid the short-term hassle of changing paths? 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 (really significantly overinvesting) time and money so that you have a much greater chance of dominating a 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—getting all the benefits that come from scarcity. The mature thing is not even to bother starting to snowboard because you’re probably not going to make it through the Dip. And the stupid thing to do is to start, give it your best shot, waste a lot of time and money, and quit right in the middle of the Dip.

The Lie of diversification—What Woodpeckers Know

When faced with the Dip, many individuals and organizations diversify. If you can’t get to the next level, the thinking goes, invest your energy in leaning to do something else. This leads to record labels with thousands of artists instead of focused promotion for just a few. It leads to job seekers who can demonstrate competency at a dozen tasks instead of mastery of just one.

Hardworking, motivated people find diversification a natural outlet for their energy and drive. Diversification feels like the right thing to do. Enter a new market, apply for a job in a new area, start a new sport. Who knows? This might just be the one.

And yet the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.

A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand time on one tree and get dinner.

How Arnold Beat the Dip

Like most people, all day long, every day, you use your muscles. But they don’t grow. You don’t look like Mr. Universe because you quit using your muscles before you reach the moment where the stress causes them to start growing. It’s the natural thing to do, because an exhausted muscle feels unsafe—and it hurts.

It’s human nature to quit when it hurts. But it’s that reflex that creates scarcity.

Simple: If you can’t make it through the Dip, don’t start.

If you can embrace that simple rule, you’ll be a lot choosier about which journeys you start.

Superstar Thinking

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. This isn’t for everyone. If it were, there’d be no superstars. If you choose this path, it’s because you realize that there’s a Dip, and you believe you can get through it. The Dip is actually your greatest ally because it makes the project worthwhile (and keeps others from competing with you).

But wait, that’s not enough. 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. It’s difficult, but it’s vitally important.

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).

In The Wizard of Oz, there’s an incredible image of the man behind the curtain, laughing at Dorothy and her friends as he gives them incredibly difficult, almost impossible tasks to accomplish. While he lives the easy life in Oz, he supports himself by sending his acolytes off on impossible missions.

It’s no wonder we quit. The system wants us to.

CONCEPTUAL DIP—You got this far operating under one set of assumptions. Abandoning those assumptions and embracing a new, bigger set may be exactly what you need to do to get to the next level. The heroes who have reinvented institutions and industries . . . all did it in exactly the same way—by working through a conceptual Dip all the way to the other side.

You know this already. You’re not stupid, and you’ve noticed all your life that the big benefits accrue to those who don’t quit. And it hasn’t made a difference so far, so why should you listen to me now?

Simple. It’s about the story you tell yourself. You grew up believing that quitting is a moral failing. . . . 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.

Average is for Losers

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.

Am I being too harsh? Isn’t your time and your effort and your career and your reputation too valuable to squander on just being average? 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. You deserve better than average.

Salespeople Who Quit

A well-respected study (probably apocryphal) found that the typical salesperson gives up after the fifth contact with a prospect. After five times, the salesperson figures she’s wasting her time and the prospect’s, quits, and moves on.

Of course, the study reports that 80 percent of these customers buy on the seventh attempt to close the sale. If only the salesperson had stuck it out!

The Opposite of Quitting Isn’t “Waiting Around”

No, the opposite of quitting is rededication. The opposite of quitting is an invigorated new strategy designed to break the problem apart.

Coping Is a Lousy Alternative to Quitting

Coping is what people do when they try to muddle through. They cope with a bad job or a difficult task. The problem with coping is that it never leads to exceptional performance. Mediocre work is rarely because of a lack of talent and often because of the Cul-de-Sac. All coping does is waste your time and misdirect your energy. If the best you can do is cope, you’re better off quitting.

Quitting is better than coping because quitting frees you up to excel at something else.

Three Questions to Ask Before Quitting

QUESTION 1: AM I PANICKING?

Quitting is not the same as panicking. Panic is never premeditated. Panic attacks us, it grabs us, it is in the moment.

Quitting when you’re panicked is dangerous and expensive. The best quitters, as we’ve seen, are the ones who decide in advance when they’re going to quit. You can always quit later—so wait until you’re done panicking to decide.

When the pressure is greatest to compromise, to drop out, or to settle, your desire to quit should be at its lowest. The decision to quit is often made in the moment. But that’s exactly the wrong time to make such a critical decision. The reason so many of us quit in the Dip is that without a compass or a plan, the easiest thing to do is to give up. While that might be the easiest path, it’s also the least successful one.

QUESTION 2: WHO AM I TRYING TO INFLUENCE?

If you’re trying to influence a market, though, the rules are different. Sure, some of the people in a market have considered you (and even rejected you). But most of the people in the market have never even heard of you. The market doesn’t have just one mind. Different people in the market are seeking different things.

Influencing one person is like scaling a wall. If you get over the wall the first few tries, you’re in. if you don’t often you’ll find that the wall gets higher with each attempt.

Influencing a market, on the other hand, is more of a hill than a wall. You can make progress, one step at a time, and as you get higher, it actually gets easier. People in the market talk to each other. They are influenced by each other. So every step of progress you make actually gets amplified.

QUESTION 3: WHAT SORT OF MEASURABLE PROGRESS AM I MAKING?

You don’t define yourself by the tactics you use. Instead, your organization succeeds or fails in its efforts to reach its big goals. And the moment your tactics are no longer part of winning the Dip—the moment they are in a Cul-de-Sac—you are obligated to switch tactics at the same time you most definitely keep aiming for the bigger goal.

You’re Astonishing

How dare you waste it.

You and your organization have the power to change everything. To create remarkable products and services. To over deliver. To be the best in the world.

How dare you squander that resource by spreading it too thin.

How dare you settle for mediocre just because you’re busy coping with too many things on your agenda, racing against the clock to get it all done.

The lesson is simple: If you’ve got as much as you’ve got, use it. Use it to become the best in the world, to change the game, to set the agenda for everyone else. You can only do that by marshaling all your resources to get through the biggest possible Dip. In order to get through that Dip, you’ll need to quit everything else. If it’s not going to put a dent in the world, quit. Right now. Quit and use that void to find the energy to assault the Dip that matters.

Go ahead, make something happen. We’re waiting!

All our successes are the same. All our failures, too.

We succeed when we do something remarkable.

We fail when we give up too soon.

We succeed when we are the best in the world at what we do.

We fail when we get distracted by tasks we don’t have the guts to quit.