Book Report

"THE DIP"

By Seth Godin

Seth's BLOG

Seth on TED

A good friend of mine introduced me to this book.  It is an interesting short read about when you should quit and when you should continue.  It gives some good advice and ideas.  Although I didn't agree with everything postulated by the author, it really caused some deep contemplative thinking about what I should do and where I should go in my life, including some consideration on some of my goals.

Below is a review from this most current read:

• The main point that Godin makes is that a truly successful person is one who knows when to quit, what to quit, and isn't afraid to quit.
• He explains that there is a strategy to quitting.  First of all, a successful person shouldn't quit when he is in the moment, frustrated, or emotional.  That is a reactive quit and not a wise decision.  
• The 2 most common situations when people quit are during the Dip or the Cul De Sac.  The Dip is the hard spot between when you start something new and exciting, but before you have mastered it and achieved great success.  It is usually a very hard and typically long period where most people drop out.  Because most people drop out, those who persevere through the dip are rare.  When something or someone is rare their value increases, which is where the great worth and success begins.  The Dip weeds out the competition.  It is analogous to the grueling midpoint of the marathon, the point where most people give up.  If you can make it through that you can come out the other side stronger and the best at what you do.  That is when the big rewards come.  
• The Cul De Sac is the situation where you work and work and work and nothing really ever changes.  It doesn't get much better, it doesn't get much worse, it just is.  This is referred to as a "dead end job".  The problem with this is that when you continue to work a dead end it is keeping you from doing something else where you could have success.
• Success will be found when you can identify Cul De Sac's that steal your attention and resources, diverting your attention away from possible Dips.  The difficult part is having the courage to quit a stagnant situation so you can move into a progressive situation.  Quitting the projects that don't go anywhere is essential if you want to stick out the projects that will get you somewhere.
• Don't give up on your long term goals and desires, rather quit spending time on the tactics that won't  help you reach your goals.

• Quit Smart: Ask yourself these questions before quitting.
• Am I panicking--don't quit in the moment when things seem bad and emotions are high.  Quitting should be premeditated and well thought out, not when you are caught up in the drama and emotions of a situation
• Who am I trying to influence--If you are trying to influence a person, persistence has it's limits.  If you are trying to influence a market it's different.  each step you take carries more weight and can influence more people.  Persistence in this case can have a greater impact.
• What source of measurable progress am I making--Find a way to show forward progress, no matter how small.  For example, measuring how many referrals or sales growth is an objective measure that could be used. 
• More questions to ask yourself:
• Is this a Dip or Cul De Sac
• Is my persistance going to pay off in the long run
• Am I engaged with just one person/organization or do my actions spill over into the entire workplace
• If I'm going to quit anyway, is there something dramatic I can do instead that might change the game
• What chance does this project have to become the best in the world
• Are you avoiding the remarkable as a way of quitting without quitting

In reviewing my goals I decided that overall they help me achieve my long term vision.  However, as I looked at my 3 year goal of being on Jimmy Fallon, I decided that in no way does putting my effort into that help me achieve anything I desire with my career or my family.  I am eliminating that goal from my list.  I also need to spend more focused time right now on passing my boards and becoming the best Physical Therapist in practice and in business.  That is where I should be focusing my efforts, since so much hinges on my achievement of my PT license and the opportunities for me right now are in the PT world.
These are good changes for me!  This is why we must continually be reading, so as to learn and grow and always be progressing.  As stated by Sam Walton, "everything around you is changing.  To succeed, stay out in front of change"!

IF IT SCARES YOU, IT MIGHT BE A GOOD THING TO TRY

BOOK REPORT

What I learned from reading the ALCHEMIST

What a great book!  I really enjoyed this story, but I quickly discovered that this is a novel that I will have to review and re-read in order to grasp the many lessons contained within.

Being Written in a story format it reminded me of a scriptural parable: a relate-able story with different levels of messages and meaning that can be discovered depending on the depth of knowledge of the reader.  It is a very enjoyable and a quick 163 page read.  For me it took a little longer than expected due to busy schedule and not making time to add it into my daily study.  Now onward to the next great read:
Launching a Leadership Revolution
7 Habits of Highly Effective People (I can't believe I haven't read this one yet)
One Simple Idea

Some of the take away lessons for me include the following:

Everyone has a calling in life, but few pay heed to it    

• Since before I ever started this blog, before I went to college, or before I knew much about this world, I would dream of big achievements and great financial success!  I remember as a little kid feeling like I had a special something to do in this life, but as time went on I was distracted and convinced to believe that I was limited in what I could achieve.  EVERYONE has had that gut feeling that there is more, or that they can achieve more.  However, due to life's beatings, we allow ourselves to become convinced that we aren't worthy of, or not capable of achieving great things.  So we let go of our dreams and aspirations.  This book reminded me that we all have great things we can achieve, but we give up or sometimes don't even start the path that leads to our own "personal legend".

Achieving our "Personal Legend" will take time and effort      

• The young boy in this book spends a long time seeking out his treasure, or personal legend.  He gets fooled by money, distracted by love, and conned by his own heart.  He spends years searching, and every time he gets distracted or lost, his soul or subconscious talks to him and tells him to stick with it.  We all have the choice to listen to our soul and accomplish what we desire, or be like the majority of people and allow ourselves to be distracted by life's frivolous temptations.  Sometimes they seem like good things, or maybe they are good things, but there is no replacement for achieving our goal.  However, the hardest part is sticking with it as sometimes it will take months or even years to accomplish.  I have been trying for 2 years to accomplish my goals of getting my Physical Therapy license, and although I haven't yet I must keep trying until I pass the exam.  There are so many examples of successful people taking years and great sacrifice to become or achieve what they wanted.  Here are some great examples of successful people who spent a lot of time and effort before achieving their goal:     

 Colonel Sanders : The founder of KFC. He started his dream at 65 years old! He got a social security check for only $105 and was mad. Instead of complaining he did something about it.He thought restaurant owners would love his fried chicken recipe, use it, sales would increase, and he’d get a percentage of it. He drove around the country knocking on doors, sleeping in his car, wearing his white suit.Do you know how many times people said no till he got one yes? 1009 times!

Walt Disney: The man who gave us Disney World and Mickey Mouse. His first animation company went banktrupt. He was fired by a news editor cause he lacked imagination. Legend has it he wasturned down 302 times before he got financing for creating Disney World.

Albert Eistein: He didn’t speak till he was four and didn’t read till seven. His parents and teachers thought he was mentally handicapped. He only turned out to win a Nobel prize and be the face of modern physics.

Richard Branson: He’s a billionaire mogul of Virgin but has had his share of failures. Remember Virgin Cola or Virgin credit cards? Probably not. He’s lost hundreds of millions of dollars but has not let failure stop him. When you’re rich like him you can rent his private island for $53,000 a night.

Mark Cuban: The billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks got rich when he sold his company to Yahoo for $5.9 billion in stock. He admitted he was terrible at his early jobs. His parents wanted him to have a normal job. So he tried carpentry but hated it. He was a short order cook but a terrible one. He waited tables but couldn't open a bottle of wine. He says of his failures, “I've learned that it doesn't matter how many times you failed,” Cuban says. “You only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.”

Vincent Van Gogh: He only sold one painting in his lifetime!  Just one to a friend. Despite that he kept painting and finished over 800 pieces. Now everyone wants to buy them and his most expensive painting is valued at $142.7 million.

Theodor Seuss Giesel: Dr. Seuss gave us Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. Books every child reads. At first many didn’t think he would succeed. 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

John Grisham: The American author first was a lawyer who loved to write. His first book A Time to Kill took three years to write. The book was rejected 28 times until he got one yes for a 5,000 copy print. He’s sold over 250 million total copies of his books.

Steven Spielberg: He applied and was denied two times to the prestigious University of Southern California film school. Instead he went to Cal State University in Long Beach.  He went on to direct some of the biggest movie blockbusters in history. Now he’s worth $2.7 billion and in 1994 got an honorary degree from the film school that rejected him twice.

Stephen King: His first book Carrie was rejected 30 times and he threw it in the trash. His wife retrieved it out of the trash and encouraged him to resubmit it. The rest is history. He has sold more than 350 million copies of his books. (He’s also made many adults fear clowns too.)

Stephenie Meyer: The author of the crazy Twilight series said the inspiration from the book came from a dream. She finished it in three months but never intended to publish it until a friend suggested she should.  She wrote 15 letters to literary agencies. Five didn’t reply. Nine rejected. One gave her a chance. Then eight publishers auctioned for the right to publish Twilight. She got a three book deal worth $750,000. In 2010, Forbes reported she earned $40 million.

Tim Ferris: The man behind the 4 Hour Workweek, who changed how many people view work and life, was rejected by 26 publishers before one gave him a chance. It’s been on the bestseller’s list for years, sold all over the world, and last year published The 4 Hour Body that went to #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list.

The Beatles: They were rejected by many record labels. In a famous rejection, the label said,“”guitar groups are on the way out” and “the Beatles have no future in show business”.  After that the Beatles signed with EMI, brought Beatlemania to the United States, and became the greatest band in history.

Michael Jordan: He’s famous for being cut from his high school basketball team. He turned out to be the greatest basketball player but never let failure deter him. I love this quote…  “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Thomas Edison: No list of success from failures would be complete without the man who gave us many inventions including the light bulb. He knew failure wouldn’t stop him.  If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward

(taken from http://getbusylivingblog.com/famous-people-who-found-success-despite-failures/)

Expect the process to NOT turn out the way we expect

• I can't help but love the end of this book!  Without ruining the ending, just when you think it's all okay it's not.  Then, just when I thought, noway can it end like that, it doesn't!  Throughout the boy's journey there are a series of unfortunate and difficult circumstances that all end up challenging his faith and dedication.  No road to success is worth anything unless it is difficult to walk at one point or another.  We must remember that life is going to work out differently than we expect, but that doesn't mean the end result is bad!  I would have never expected to hold a Doctorate degree that I can't use 2 years after graduation, but my failures have led me to understand what I am really capable of.  When I do get my license I will be looking at a path that I never imagined I would venture, and oh how great the story will be!

Listen to the signs and omens

• I have been trying to discover what my passion is!  I can't see anything that I just love to do or am exceptionally qualified to do.  It has been a quest of mine the last couple of years without much success.  I have also been trying to figure out what to do with my life since not passing my licensure exam to become a Physical Therapist.  I spent 8 years studying in the University system to achieve this one goal, and now I have been in limbo for 2 years unsure of what to do.  However, after having read this book I realized that I was looking for the answer from the wrong source.  My subconscious knows what my passion is and how to pass the exam, I have just haven't been looking closely at the clues it gives me.  In the book, the young boy had to trust that the universe would align to give him the proper clues, which they did.  The clues required knowledge and deep thinking in order to achieve what to do next.  The same thing will happen to us.  This is a new lesson for me!  Since finishing the book I have began looking for the signs of what I should do with my life...they are subtle...but when I stop and really think about it, they are there.  This has given me new understanding and purpose in my life!

Don't fear suffering, disappointment, or failure 

• Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of too much success, fear of the unknown, fear of disappointment, fear of letting others down...no matter what fear we have the fact remains that it is a product of our thoughts, and only we can choose to let it make us or break us!  This is a lesson that really stood out to me in this book.  Often the boy is scared or unsure of what to do, but he presses forward, trying, knowing failure could bring harm or death.  This is one of the hurdles I faced in starting this blog.  What if I fail in my goals?  What if I can't keep up in making regular posts?  What if I say or write something that somebody hates, disagrees with, or ridicules?  These are all questions and fears that I faced, but that is a large part of why I tried!  I hate fear!  I hate how it makes me feel and that an emotion based off of thought, created by my own mind, could keep me from doing what I want to do.  Since I was young I have tried to face my fears.  It has been instinctual to me that the emotion of fear would keep me from going where I wanted.  I readily admit that there have been times that fear has gotten the better of me, but that is partly why I hate it!  I don't want anything to stand in my way, especially my own thoughts and emotions, the one thing I have complete choice and control over!

The process is an adventure of ups and downs, enjoy it!

• When I read a book like the Alchemist it is easy to see the awesome adventure he is going through and think "why can't my life be an adventure like that"?  Here's a little secret...My life is an adventure and I'm writing the pages every day!  Stopping to realize this every once in a while and take note of the exciting things in life is integral in keeping an energy for the NOW!  I struggle with this principle often.  I want tomorrow with all it's rewards and goal achievement to come so badly I often find myself wishing my life away!   Right now I am living some of the most exciting times for my little family, and most amazing character building opportunities for myself.  I am learning and growing and experiencing awesome opportunities every week.  The only way for my life to stop being an adventure is if I were to stop trying to move forward.  Since that is not an option for me let the adventure continue!