Prince Rahul's Key Ideas from The Dip
by Seth Godin

• The Dip creates scarcity; scarcity creates value.
• It’s the incredibly difficult challenges (the Dips) that give you the opportunity to pull ahead.
• In a competitive world, adversity is your ally. The harder it gets, the better chance you have of insulating yourself from the competition.

• Scarcity makes being at the top worth something.
• The mass market is dying.
• People settle. They settle for less than they are capable of.
• They fail because they don’t know when to quit and when to refuse to settle.
• Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.

• Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.
• Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.
• Instead, they quit in their quest to be the best in the world because the cost just seemed too high.
• Quitting is often a great strategy, a smart way to manage your life and your career.

QUESTION 1: AM I PANICKING?

QUESTION 2: WHO AM I TRYING TO INFLUENCE?

QUESTION 3: WHAT SORT OF MEASURABLE PROGRESS AM I MAKING?

• If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.
• If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.

• The entire company is based on the idea of slogging through the Dip, relentlessly changing tactics but never quitting the big idea.
• Procter & Gamble has killed hundreds of products. Starbucks killed their music-CD–burning stations. Social Security reform has been dropped a dozen times.
• Selling is about a transference of emotion, not a presentation of facts.

1. You run out of time (and quit).
2. You run out of money (and quit).
3. You get scared (and quit).
4. You’re not serious about it (and quit).
5. You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit).
6. You focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard).
7. You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don’t have the talent).

• The opposite of quitting is rededication.
• The opposite of quitting is an invigorated new strategy designed to break the problem apart.
• Short-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.

• To be a superstar, you must do something exceptional.
• In your search for a quick fix, you almost certainly waste time and you definitely waste energy jumping back and forth. 
• The problem is that only a tiny portion of the audience is looking for the brand-new thing. Most people are waiting for the tested, the authenticated, and the proven.

• Winners understand that taking that pain now prevents a lot more pain later.
• You should quit if the project you’re working on has a Dip that isn’t worth the reward at the end.
• Quitting Is Not the Same as Failing.
• The real success goes to those who obsess.