The Dip

The Dip teaches us that, between starting and succeeding, there’s a time of struggle when we should either pursue excellence or quit strategically while helping us choose between the two.

Whatever endeavor you undertake, small and big struggles are waiting for you hidden behind the initial excitement. Unfortunately, facing them is the only way to realize yourself.

In fact, avoiding such hardness by doing only easy things won’t get you very far and it’s even risky. For example, if you worked at a retail store and only had to refill the shelves, you’d be easily replaceable. Instead, if you become the best at handling difficult customers, you’ll be precious for the company you work for.

To overcome the dip, you need to embrace increasingly hard challenges. It’s like in bodybuilding: to grow more muscles you have to lift up heavier and heavier weights. That’s why bodybuilders always try to push their limits further. Think of your personal development as a muscle: no pain, no gain.

Emerging from the dip also implies perseverance. When you start to build a new business, be prepared to struggle for years. Today people wait for new products to be reviewed as high-quality ones before spending their precious money on them. Hence even if you created the most fabulous product, you can be required to spend a very long time in the Dip of getting enough customers.

While in school we had to be quite good at many things, in the post-school world it’s better to be excellent at one thing. When looking for an accountant, people don’t care if he can also play the piano. They just want him to provide a great service. Specializing is essential for you to withstand the dips you may face in your life!

According to the International Ice Cream Association, vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor and chocolate is the second. Well, vanilla accounts for almost 30% of all ice cream sales in the U.S. while chocolate only for about 10%. A big difference in results between first and second is very common, it’s called Zipf’s law. This means being the very best at what you do will bring you much higher profits than being second or one of the best. Our society likes winners. People don’t want to waste their time and are always looking for the best movies to watch, the best places to eat and so on. If you are in a new place and ask locals for a typical restaurant, they will probably send you to the most famous one in town. As a result, the majority of tourists are likely to eat in the very same place. But having many more customers…