Type Dominik Into Google
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007Type dominik into Google and dominik.net is the first hit :)
It’s actually been that way for several years, without any real effort on my part aside from making and maintaining this website; I suppose I have an advantage from this site being around since 1999 as well as having a rare name with a relatively rare spelling.
If this site weren’t the first hit on Google for ‘dominik’, it wouldn’t really be worth the effort to try to make it so, since this is just my personal website, with some poetry, photos, a Japan travelogue and this very blog.
Incidentally, that’s also the point of Seth Godin’s new book, The Dip. Seth Godin, a master marketer, argues that most things worth doing in life will start out easy, then get difficult and then, only if you persist through this difficult period — he calls it the Dip — then things get really good. For example, you might call the first year of law school the Dip of law school — it’s generally agreed that the first year is the toughest, because it’s meant as a filter. The bar exam is another dip.
I had the fortune of being able to see Seth talk in person yesterday in Ann Arbor, and his talk was excellent, entertaining and educational. I even managed to snag the last question, asking:
“How do you find ‘your best’? In other words, how do you pick the dip you want to overcome?”
I asked this question because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about; I have this set of interests and passions, and then I have the real world. The trick of building a career, at least as I in my rather inexperienced perspective see it, is to pick the right set of interests and passions and put them into a job that lets you be the best in the world at what you do. This means best in the world in the opinion of the market that you’re in, since that’s the only market that matters. Example: In the market of the Democratic primary, only open to registered Democrats, does it matter what a Republican voter thinks? Answer: No.
This lesson can even be applied to family life. If you’re a husband or a father, your goal is to the best husband and father in the market that matters. But what’s the market that matters? Your wife and children. The Dips of marriage and parenting, of which there are doubtless many over the years, if surmounted, will lead to a rewarding marriage and family life.
The final, important point, is that some processes in life don’t have Dips. They just have flat Cul-de-sacs, dead ends leading nowhere. The key is not sticking to those pointless plateaus but rather quitting them and seeking out the right Dips.
But how does one find the right Dip? This was exactly my question to Seth yesterday.
His answer: Basically there are three factors that can help you determine whether a Dip is worth pursuing.
- Are you excited about the field the Dip is in?
- Is this size right? In other words, can you get through the Dip with your current resources and abilities? Or there other, preliminary Dips that you need to conquer first? (E.g. If you want to be a lawyer, you need go to law school before taking the bar exam).
- Is it worth it? So you conquer the Dip and are now on the other side. Was it worth all that effort?
In terms of dominik.net being the first hit on Google for dominik, I’ve already surmounted that Dip. But the Dip was tiny, since dominik is a rare spelling of a rare name. It was exciting, and it was worth the effort, since there wasn’t any effort I wouldn’t have done anyway (building my website).
Micro summary: Pick the right Dip, stick through it, and win! Quit pointless plateus (Cul-De-Sacs) to invest more time into sticking with your picked Dips.
For more, you can read Seth’s The Dip Blog, which has many illustrative stories as well as book excerpts. And of course, you can go read the book! I highly recommend it :)
Finally, I’ll link some images from the book to illustrate these points:
And you can buy the book on Amazon. Currently it’s $7.77:
