The Dip (Book #49)

On my husband's recommendation, I read The Dip: A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) (Seth Godin, 2007). It really is a little book, less than a hundred pages, with the simple but thought-provoking thesis that it's not so much that winners never quit as that winners know what to quit and when. The key is being able to recognize the difference between a "dip"--the period of hard work and seeming failure that happens before you succeed in anything worth doing--and a "cul-de-sac"--which can look like a dip but will never lead to success, either because you lack the resources and talents to succeed, because your market is already saturated, or whatever. The book is business-focused, but I found it useful for thinking about writing, dieting, career choices, etc. Mostly, it confirmed I'd made the right choices in switching genres and jobs, because the ones I was in before were cul-de-sacs, and that I really need to find a way to apply the principles to diet and exercise.