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Autor: Seth Godin

Hodnocení: 5/5

Pokud se aspoň trochu pohybujete v (online) marketingu, jistě znáte Setha Godina. A jestliže aspoň trochu znáte Setha Godina, tak už víte, že je to bůh.

A The Dip pak není nic jiného než boží knížka.

Měl jsem ji na seznamu už dlouho, ale šáhnul jsem po ní až v momentě, kdy jsem zažíval depresivní chvilky ohledně mého hlavního projektu. Produktivita byla neexistující, motivace na bodě mrazu a já přemýšlel, jestli to má vlastně cenu a jestli by nebylo lepší přesunout se k něčemu jinému.

Po přečtení The Dip – zhltnul jsem ji na jeden zátah během pár hodin – jsem zjistil, co se mnou je:

Právě se nacházím v onom „Dipu“, hluchém údolí, které začíná po počáteční práci plné optimismu a stojí mezi vámi a úspěchem projektu.

Seth nejdříve Dip charakterizuje, porovnává ho s Cul-de-Sac (které vypadá jako Dip, ale vede do slepé uličky, a tak je potřeba jej co nejdříve ukončit) a Cliffem (jako Cul-de-Sac, ale místo slepé uličky je na konci pád z útesu) a celkově pomáhá s uvědoměním si, jestli vám stojí za to konkrétní Dip překonat nebo jestli jste si jen vybrali špatný boj a je čas složit zbraně.

Zajímavá byla také myšlenka, že Dip není jen otravná fáze, kterou je potřeba překonat, abyste mohli vytvořit cokoliv hodnotného, ale že je to jakási zábrana, gatekeeper, který dál pustí jen ty silné. A podle toho, jak je ta zábrana velká, se také odvíjí to, jak velkou hodnotu (nebo náskok před konkurencí) můžete najít na druhé straně.

The Dip jsem přečetl přesně v momentě, kdy jsem tuhle knížku potřeboval. Ale věřím, že díky její nesmírné čtivosti i krátkosti by si ji měl přečíst každý, ať už je v jakékoliv fázi svého projektu.

Vybrané pasáže

Sometimes we get discouraged and turn to inspirational writing, like stuff from Vince Lombardi: “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” Bad advice. Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.

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

The problem with infinity is that there’s too much of it.

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 do just that. They quit when it’s painful and stick when they can’t be bothered to quit.

Scarcity, as we’ve seen, is the secret to value. If there wasn’t a Dip, there’d be no scarcity.

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.

It’s the incredibly difficult challenges (the Dips) that give you the opportunity to pull ahead. In a competitive world, adversity is your ally. The harder it gets, the better chance you have of insulating yourself from the competition. If that adversity also causes you to quit, though, it’s all for nothing.

The Dip is the reason you’re here. It’s not enough to survive your way through this Dip. You get what you deserve when you embrace the Dip and treat it like the opportunity that it really is.

Before you enter a new market, consider what would happen if you managed to get through the Dip and win in the market you’re already in.

The essential thing to know about the Dip is that it’s there. Knowing that you’re facing a Dip is the first step in getting through it.

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.

That’s the goal of any competitor: to create a Dip so long and so deep that the nascent competition can’t catch up.

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.

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.

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.

Short-term pain has more impact on most people than long-term benefits do, which is why it’s so important for you to amplify the long-term benefits of not quitting. You need to remind yourself of life at the other end of the Dip because it’s easier to overcome the pain of yet another unsuccessful cold call if the reality of a successful sales career is more concrete. It’s easier to stick out a lousy class in college if you can picture graduation day. Even more vivid is the power of keeping score. If you can track your Alexa rank online or your class rank or your market share or your spot in the sales-team pecking order, working your way up to number one is daily feedback that helps you deal with the short-term hassles.

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can’t see it. At the same time, the smartest people are realistic about not imagining light when there isn’t any.

The decision to quit or not is a simple evaluation: Is the pain of the Dip worth the benefit of the light at the end of the tunnel?

“Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.”

Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google, told me, “We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you tried it, the better it was for us because we’d make a better impression with better technology. So we were never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better.”