The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit

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

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

The people who are the best in the world specialize at getting really good at the questions they don't know.

Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can't see it

The Cul-de-Sac ( French for "dead end" ) ... is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes

The Dip creates scarcity; scarcity creates value

No one knows more about the way you think than you do.

The time to look for a new job is when you don't need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable.

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations

The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.

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

The market ... demands a signal from you that you're serious, powerful, accepted, and safe.

People settle. They settle for less than they are capable of.

Here’s a quote from ultramarathoner Dick Collins: Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You don’t want to be out there saying, “Well gee, my leg hurts, I’m a little dehydrated, I’m sleepy, I’m tired, and it’s cold and windy.” And talk yourself into quitting. If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.

You’re Astonishing How dare you waste it.

Selling is about a transference of emotion, not a presentation of facts.

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.

The Dip is the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishment.

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.

All coping does is waste your time and misdirect your energy. If the best you can do is cope, you’re better off quitting.

Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new.

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.

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.

Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.

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 mass market is dying. There is no longer one best song or one best kind of coffee. Now there are a million micromarkets, but each micromarket still has a best.

Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.

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.