Key takeaways:
- The GAP between the #1 and the rest of the spots is Super big. Be #1 or don’t be in business. Don’t be mediocre. Be great!
- #1 spot is not something that everyone can achieve. The one who reaches #1 will go through the Dip.
- “In a free market, we reward the exceptional.”
- Each micro market (niche) still has a best…best in that world…
- There is surprising value in being #1. Of all of the various ice cream flavors, vanilla is the top-seller, and its sales are drastically higher than even the second most popular flavor, chocolate.
- You need to decide when you need to quit. Quitting is good for various reasons. People who reach #1 have quit many things strategically over time.
- To understand Dip, Seth has illustrated 3 different curves. 1. The Dip, 2. The Cul-de-Sac, 3. The Cliff
- Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.
- The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery…that’s essentially a shortcut.
- Scarcity, as we’ve seen, is the secret to value. If there wasn’t a Dip, there’d be no scarcity among the best.
The Cliff (starts with high excitement and ends terribly) and The Cul-de-Sac (the dead end in French) leads you to failure over time. The other name of staying in Cul-De-Sac is staying mediocre. 
The Cliff like the bubble will bust over time. It’s like a gold rush or the stock market which keeps going higher and higher and busts at one time. 
This is the Dip Curve. You don’t become a success without going through The Dip. You will always need to go through the Dip before you achieve success. This principle applies to every part of life. When you lose weight, you need to go through the period where nothing works. When you stay in a career, you need to go through the period where you are not moving forward Nor moving backward. When you build a business, you need to go through the period where you need to sustain the business by taking risks and overcoming fear and anxiety. Seth says, this is what makes companies great and takes them to #1. 
Example of the Dip. This graph shows the number of people who quit the Boston Marathon. Nobody quits at mile 25. Most quit at the mile 20. Nobody quits when the finish line is in view. They quit during the chaos. People who sustain mile 20 are the ones who complete the marathon / eventually succeed. 
How vanilla (the #1 flavor) outnumbers its competition by being the #1 flavor.