Bill's Book of the Month: "The Dip" by Seth Godin

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that some of the most powerful professional and personal insights and ideas have come directly or indirectly from books. For that reason, in every one of my monthly newsletters, I'll be featuring one book that has made a major difference in my life. Most often, these books will be more applicable to your professional career than your personal life, but they'll have relevance to your personal life as well. I want to take his opportunity to really encourage you all to read and listen to books. As the motivational speaker Jim Rohn urges, "Feed your mind!" The statistics on how few books adults read once they leave college is scary, and I've been guilty of falling into that trap myself.

I read a little in college but then really stopped and didn't pick it up again until the last few years. Like so many of us, the tragic and horrendous events of 9/11 left a major impact on me. Following that tragedy, one realization came to me -- minor compared to the scale of that terrible incident, yet still very important. That realization was my rediscovery of the importance and satisfaction of reading. After weeks of feeling numb and walking around in some sort of funk, I began to think "I really don't remember much about how this incredible and wonderful country we live in began and our history." Now, I will admittedly never have a great memory for important historic dates and the details of decisive military battles. Following 9/11, I was hungry to be reminded of the indomitable spirit of my fellow Americans. I felt an irresistible urge to read about the strength of attitude and the commitment of people. At that time nearly seven years ago, I started to read a lot about the Founding Fathers, the drafting of the Constitution, the American Revolution, and then a huge event in early American history -- the Civil War.

After years of neglecting books, I had forgotten how books can open our minds to new ideas, and expand our perspective on the world. Reading has been a great addition to my life once again. With my appetite whetted, I dove back in and have been reading a lot in recent years, and listening to books in my car after dropping off the kids at school, getting a morning breakfast bagel and running errands. I can't emphasize how great books on CD have been in this process. It is great way to get the benefits of books you may not get a chance to read -- or books you're eager to read if only there were more hours in the day.

So with all that said, I recently read a great book, The Dip by Seth Godin who has written other books including The Purple Cow and The Big Moo. As an aside, I am currently listening to The Big Moo. I am really enjoying it, and I expect to share some thoughts on that book with you in a future newsletter. The Dip is a small (literally) quick read, approximately 75 pages in length, with easy to follow examples and short chapters. They are almost like excerpts. Godin doesn't overanalyze or spend pages and pages trying to spoon feed you the content. Instead, he lets you think about the premise of the idea and how to apply it to yourself and your situation without trying to connect every dot for you.

Now, for those of you who know me, it might be surprising to hear me talk about a book on quitting. However, this book talks about "strategic quitting." In a world where we are all so busy, pulled in so many directions, with competition coming at us from all sides and sides we never imagined even a year ago, we can't be all things to all people. We can't do all things we want to do professionally and personally and be everywhere at the same time. In this situation, maybe strategic quitting isn't such a bad idea.

The book wants you to succeed professional and personally -- to be the best. It doesn't teach you to be a quitter. It is much the opposite. It teaches you how not to quit and the importance of sticking it out, "gutting it out" through the dip. The dip "is the long slog between beginning and mastery." It is the time when, for example, the excitement of a new project has begun to wear off and you have to do the busy work like keying in email addresses, filing, opening every piece of mail just in case there is some new great lead in there, etc.

The book talks about quitting the wrong stuff, staying with the right stuff, and having the courage to do both. Too often, people quit when it gets too hard. (They quit, for example, when their first mail campaign didn't work. They say, "Why try again? I'll just forget it.") People also tend to stick when it is too inconvenient to quit. (They say, "If I quit now, what else will I do?") To be truly successful professionally and personally, quitting is a concept I never thought I would endorse. I didn't want to be labeled "a quitter" or perceived as a quitter. At the same time, I want to be successful in my professional career as well as my personal life, which means I will be following some of Seth Godin's advice and doing some quitting!

If you're thinking about quitting, and you are giving the idea the time and focus it truly deserves, then Godin has done his job. Before you decide it's time to quit something or not, ask yourself these three questions from his book:

Am I panicking?

Who am I trying to influence?

What sort of measurable progress am I making?

You will have to read The Dip to understand why these questions are so important.

If you would like to recommend a business book that you'd like to see featured in a future newsletter, please e-mail your suggestion!