The Dip, which Seth Godin coined, is that momentary “low” of despair. It is the cyclical point in a relationship, business, or season that makes you question, reflect, scratch your head and ask if there’s a good reason to go on doing it. There usually is. The Dive is something else, something I use in my own life to distinguish from The Dip. The Dive is just how it sounds – a jump, head first, where there’s no turning back. The Dive is that moment in a relationship when you realize you’ve already walked out, even though your physical body is still there. Or, when a business owner becomes ‘done’ for whatever reason. She wants out and there is no argument that could change her mind.An old friend of mine in New York, the yogi author, teacher, speaker and thought leader Elena Brower, recently closed her Manhattan studio. Why? Email.
Certainly it was more than the administrative mud of too many emails, but that about says it all. She was simply tired of the business of having a brick and mortar business. We all get that, whether we traffic in bricks or clicks. The exhaustion of running something can takes its toll and it’s okay to shut it down, even when it’s healthy.
There is this overriding mantra in our minds that we have to build it, grow it, sell it – but you don’t. You are allowed to walk away because your life mission changes, and the business no longer fist in. But first, before you do anything drastic, make sure you’re not just in a “dip”. Here’s how you tell:
1. Over and over, the back end feels overwhelmingly out of sync with the joy on the front end.
2. There’s something else (personal or professional) that continues to knock on the door of your mind – and won’t let go.
3. You can make up the income readily through another channel.
I’m all for diving. And if you do, make it a clean, beautiful, strong dive. No apologies. You’ll come up out of the water having done it with sincerity, integrity and strength, and there’s a lot of enviable entrepreneurial DNA in that.
Amy
