Godin's Dip

I read O melhor do mundo by Seth Godin this week and I couldn’t help myself: I recommended it to everyone I spend time with.

I fell in love with the idea Godin brings, and with his ability to deliver so much value in just 98 pages. Honestly, it changed the way I see success.

I’m going to share a bit of what I learned here, but I’ll start with my reading recommendation.

Paraphrasing Godin: extraordinary rewards go to the tiny minority willing to push a little farther than most— and also to the tiny minority brave enough to quit early and redirect their energy toward something new.

— Seth Godin (paraphrased)

Overall, it’s a simple idea—but one that makes you aware of something that can help a lot with decision-making in personal and professional life. Let me explain.

Imagine you’ve just been accepted into engineering at a great university. At first, your grandma, your mom, even the dog... Everyone will hype you up. You’ll feel like the smartest person in the world.

After a while, you run into Calculus I, II, and III… and you start realizing it wasn’t as easy as it looked. At that point, quitting is definitely an option.

But imagine that if you push through, you’ll graduate and be closer to a promising future.

Nice! You’ll take the job spot of the person who fell into the valley of death of calculus!

That same pattern happens when you start a project or a potential hobby, even a relationship…

At the beginning, it’s so beautiful and exciting. Everything is sunshine and roses. But after some time… it gets boring, right? You lose steam and, before you notice, you’re engaging less and less.

You quit. And that’s a shame. Quitting means accepting you invested time (hours, months, years…), money, and a solid dose of effort that any new activity demands, for nothing.

So if you’ve been through that and didn’t have a name for it, now you do:

You fell into the DIP, or as I like to call it, the valley of death.

The valley of death is what separates the champions from the losers, the best in the world from the average.

And it exists.

Godin says that anything worth STICKING WITH in life has a dip. Because without it, there would be no barrier to entry, and it would be impossible to become the best at anything. The people willing to push harder, and for longer, are the ones closer to real results.

And the opposite is true: everything worth QUITTING in life has no dip. You know that monotonous job with no room to grow? That dragged-out relationship?

Godin calls it a dead end. You’ll walk and walk, but in the end you won’t get anywhere. A true straight line to failure!

Average people—those who’ve accepted they won’t create any real impact in the context they live in—tend to settle in these places: in the comfort before the dip, or in the dead end.

💡 Tip: Quit these places—relationships, hobbies, paths…

In the book, Godin also suggests questions you should ask before deciding whether to start (or not) a new activity, like:

Is this a dead end? (Will it help me grow—or is it just a straight line?) Am I willing to meet the requirements the dip will demand? Is the success on the other side worth the dip?

Seth basically says: if you’re not willing to cross the dip in a new project, don’t even start. The world already has plenty of mediocre people insisting on things they don’t even enjoy.

Find another activity/project you might genuinely like more—and go all in!

Being aware of where you are is essential. And more importantly: know when to quit and, of course, when to stick with it.

Paraphrasing Godin again: when people hit the dip, they often try to play it safe—doing “standard” work that can’t be criticized. They aim for the middle… and that’s exactly why so few become truly exceptional.

— Seth Godin (paraphrased)