The Dip

Dear Reader,

There is a pattern that’s prevalent in everyone’s life.

Here is how it goes:

1. You find something interesting (a career/job/hobby/goal/project)
2. You start working towards it and see some progress
3. It becomes hard
4. You try some more
5. It gets harder
6. You give up and move on to something else

This point where you give up is called “The Dip.”

The Dip is what keeps a category from getting overly saturated. It is what differentiates the mediocre from the experts. The Dip keeps the people who are not as committed from positions of responsibility.

For example, let’s consider med school. Med school is one of the most rigorous educational pathways (so is IIT in India). If someone cannot keep up with the rigor of med school, organic chemistry, anatomy, and everything that comes with it, they cannot become medical practitioners; they SHOULDN’T become medical practitioners.

What comes after you overcome the dip is what attracts you to start in the first place. It is the high pay, flying in private jets, the international trips, luxurious cars, and designer dresses. It is all the incredible rewards you start for, but the dip is what sucks.

Working as a CEO of a big corporation perhaps is not that tough, but the process to becoming a CEO—the years of bureaucracy, of understanding the market, of dealing with toxic co-workers, of learning how things work—is the hard part.

If you know there’s something that’s not worth the dip, don’t start. If you’re already doing something that’s not worth it, give those things up immediately. It is clever to give up before you reach the dip, rather than when you are in the dip, having wasted so much and effort.

The hardship that is present, the dip which makes it hard for you to move to the next level, is there to help you. It will keep away other people who are not as committed. The dip will 10x the reward of becoming the best for you.

The Dip is your best friend.

I hope that gave you something interesting to ponder over the weekend.

I’ll see you next week.

Take care!

Warmly,
Suraj