When a simple line graph can spur nearly two decades of conversation, you’ve certainly found a powerful ‘intellectual headshot’.

I’ll admit, I hadn’t seen Seth Godin’s “The Dip” before stumbling on this recent explainer video, but it’s easy to see why it continues to speak to people well after he first published it in 2007.

“The Dip,” Seth writes, “is the long slog between starting and mastery.”

Paraphrasing: After you’ve started something new, whether is starting a business, writing, or even scuba diving, there’s an initial period of excitement, learning and results.

Then inevitably that falls, and you have to decide whether you want to quit and cut your losses, or push through and achieve the results all the quitters gave up.

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It’s a powerful, broadly applicable concept, told succinctly in an 80-page book.

But I showcase it here as an example of a few things:

• An instant visual telegraph of a layered concept
• Immediately applicable to the audience’s individual context
• The simpler the better -- distilled down until it looks elementary
• See it once, you can’t unsee it, and can replicate it from memory
• If the audience wants to learn more, they can ask questions or explore deeper

And explore they did - look at all the takes Seth's visual has inspired:

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🤔 What kind of conversation could you start about your client’s painful problem with two axes and one simple line?

Pull out a pencil - see what you come up with.

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💡

-Wes

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P.S. I have just a couple consults left next week if you're interested in a November Headshot sprint.

Let's chat.