The Dip
He never gets anywhere because he’s always switching lines, never able to really run for it. While starting up is thrilling, it’s not until you get through the Dip that your efforts pay off. Countless entrepreneurs have perfected the starting part, but give up long before they finish paying their dues. The sad news is that when you start over, you get very little credit for how long you stood in line with your last great venture.
Sep 15, 2026Short-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.
Sep 15, 2026Persistent 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.
Sep 15, 2026The same applies to the strategic management of organizations. 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?
Sep 15, 2026The 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.
Sep 10, 2026It’s easy to be a CEO. What’s hard is getting there. There’s a huge Dip along the way.
Sep 8, 2026Scarcity, as we’ve seen, is the secret to value. If there wasn’t a Dip, there’d be no scarcity.
Sep 8, 2026dead 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.
Sep 8, 2026Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources. That’s it.
Sep 8, 2026The Dip creates scarcity; scarcity creates value.
Sep 8, 2026The Cul-de-Sac and the Cliff Are the Curves That Lead to Failure If you find yourself facing either of these two curves, 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.
Sep 8, 2026In 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.
Sep 8, 2026When Jack Welch remade GE, the most fabled decision he made was this: If we can’t be #1 or #2 in an industry, we must get out. Why sell a billion-dollar division that’s making a profit quite happily while ranking #4 in market share? Easy. Because it distracts management attention. It sucks resources and capital and focus and energy. And most of all, it teaches people in the organization that it’s okay not to be the best in the world. Jack quit the dead ends. By doing so, he freed resources to get his other businesses through the Dip.
Sep 8, 2026When 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 learning to do something else.
Sep 8, 2026And 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.
Sep 8, 2026A 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.
Sep 8, 2026It’s easier to be mediocre than it is to confront reality and quit. Quitting is difficult. Quitting requires you to acknowledge that you’re never going to be #1 in the world. At least not at this. So it’s easier just to put it off, not admit it, settle for mediocre.
Sep 8, 2026Simple: If you can’t make it through the Dip, don’t start.
Sep 8, 2026If 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.
Sep 8, 2026Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.
Sep 2, 2026Just 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.
Sep 2, 2026The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.
Sep 2, 2026Strategic 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.
Sep 2, 2026