very short, good advice, not heavy handed ( )

The thesis of the book: whatever you’re doing, there will be a sucky part (“the dip”). When you hit it, you have to decide if you want to push through it to get what’s on the other side or not. You also have to evaluate whether there is an “other side” or if you’ve hit a dead end (“cul du sac”)

It’s not a bad message but it’s written in a stereotypical workaholic “hustle culture” tone and language, hence the rating.

In this worldview, “quitting” anything is bad and a sign of weakness so a huge chunk of this book is convincing hustle culture people to “quit” things that might distract them from their true goals, or to quit pursuits that aren’t getting results .

At the same time it says if you don’t quit things, then there’s untold rewards at the other side.

I don’t think the author intended this as some sort of “reverse psychology” contradiction — i just don’t think he worked the messaging out very well on it.

(Also, in 2023 the dated internet references are pretty fun!) ( )

http://mysawdust.com/blogs/curlyshavings/2007/09/book_the_dip_1.html ( )

Obvious advice that's easier said than done. ( )

Good career advice
Horrendous life advice

The entire book talks about how you must focus on one thing, one single thing.
This is not bad advice but he went on to say that if you are not better than the 99% in a thing you must either focus on that thing or abandon it, hobbies included, he went on to say that you have to organize when you will abandon a task and if you will.
This is horrendous advice.
We humans are very bad at making previsions, how do you know if you like piano if you never play it? How do you know that you don't like snowboarding if you have only take a few lessons? Maybe there are certain things that you like at beginners level but not on competitive.
But let say that you know that you will like a thing and you will become better than the 99% of people in that thing, there is another problem, just like our body needs varied food in order to remain healthy a healthy mind needs varied sources in order to stay healthy, this is because our brain like to experiment and connect ideas and sources trying to produce something, so having a large number of resources make so your brain has more to connect.

This book gives some good career advice like "even if it is a high paying, high position job, a dead-end is still a dead-end if you want to advance you need to find another job"

And if this was all that the book had to offer I will give it a good 4 star, but there is another problem, this book is too long, people on reviews were not joking when they say that you could read the essence of the book in their review! Why he diluted his book so much I don't know, because of this i will give this book a 3-star rating.