I was fortunate enough to get a pre-release copy of Seth Godin’s new book, The Dip, and like all of his books it’s just great.  I just love his stuff.  This particular book is not a big book but it is a powerful one.

The basic idea is that the dip is what separates the men from the boys in just about any endeavor.  In other words, you’ve got to persevere through some sort of dip (hardship/difficult) to do anything of any real merit.  The dip actually makes it hard to do something and that difficult keeps lots of people from doing it.  That scarcity is want ultimately makes the endeavor both unique and valuable.  (He does a lot better job of explaining it than I can, obviously.)

Not only does Godin talk about how you must push through the dips in life to succeed, he also talks a lot about what to do when something isn’t worth pursuing any longer.  Plus, he gives some rules of thumb to know the difference.  As the subtitle says the book basically teaches you when to stick and when to quit. 

I’ve often said that we spend a lot of time telling pastors to stick to stuff be we never really teach them how to do that.  Beyond that, we NEVER talk about when it’s time to leave a post or position.  When is it wise to stick around and when is it wise to move on to something else.  Godin answers a lot of those types of questions and for that alone I’d recommend this book.  Actually, this is the sort of book that you’ll end up buying and passing along to friends.  It’s that good.