Quitting is a taboo amidst today’s hustle culture and quitters are considered weak. The narrative begins by highlighting this malevolent perception associated with quitting. Such perception is so prevalent that it was difficult to find an image for the word ‘quit’ as most results depicted exactly the opposite ‘don’t quit’, ‘never give up’, and so on. However, knowing when to walk away is an underappreciated art that is necessary not only for employees and founders but also presidents and economists.
Persistence is a virtue; but excessive persistence entails dire costs as those who persevere are so indulged that they fail to reassess the situation. Although tales of success are riddled with those who persevere we need to realize that they are riddled with survivor bias and associated ignorance, as the first person to run a marathon died after doing so.
Within the first few chapters, I realized that my previous quitting decisions were correct though it also made me realize that I fell into the classical trap of feeling too early to quit and then actually quitting too late. Nevertheless it validated the lessons that I had learned from quitting. And once your perception towards quitting has changed, the narrative moves on to the art of quitting that includes mental biases such as sunk cost fallacy, goal induced myopia, risk aversion, ownership bias and identity crisis, along with opportunity costs and expected value theory. Moreover, each topic begins with a real-life narrative including Olympic athletes, Unicorn start-up founders, leading start-up incubators, and Fortune 500 companies, ensuring that you can connect and imbibe.
As the sheer extent of narrative induces numerous after thoughts and learning, I suggest reading the entire book and proceed with highlighting the three most important takeaways for myself.
#1 Being Honest and NOT Pursuing the Fool’s Errand
If you have read fixed vs growth mindset, I am sure that you believe in the fact that sticking to a problem will eventually make it crack. However, this book will make you realize that perseverance works only where pursuing equips you with wherewithal to solve, otherwise an accountant delving upon a calculus problem without understanding the fundamentals is not going to do any good other than the consolation ‘at least I tried’. So unless you can solve out the hard or tricky part, sticking to the problem is either make believe or fools errand; the former only if you succeed.
#2 Kill Criteria – identifying the symptoms when to walk away
This is similar to the red flags that you term as non-negotiable prior to getting into a relationship but start ignoring as your emotions takeover. Hence, these symptoms or qualification criteria need to be identified in advance, as once you get indulged in the pursuit your judgement loses rationale. This can be intermediate milestones that your business should achieve or your tolerance threshold that your boss or workplace need to overstep.
But this has a caveat, as context is dynamic, not only should you periodically measure up to the criteria but also adjust the criteria. Such an objective measure gives a trigger point and stops you from being delusion-ed by sunk cost fallacy or the inertia to continue with the status-quo, which is also ‘not-to-quit’, passive perseverance, decision.
#3 Moving On – Selecting an Opportunity rather than making a Leap of Faith
Deciding to quit is merely the first step of the process; and unless you move-on to an opportunity worth pursuing long enough, this will become a perennial loop. Although there is nothing wrong, as financial investors and fund managers do this for a living. And surprisingly, as elaborated in the book, they are yet to perfect their quitting skills. However, selecting an opportunity is easier said than done as there are numerous biases that you undergo but are unaware about.
Two of the most important principles that I’ve learned are the expected value theory, which is another classic Micro-economics 101 that we fail to put into practice, and endowment or identity bias that stops us from diverting too much from previous trajectory, ensuring that regressions can still be drawn. And leaving you with a quote from the book:
Worldly wisdom suggests that it’s better to fail conventionally, than to succeed unconventionally!
John Maynard Keynes
Although I had picked up this book only to validate my own decision to move-on, this turned out to be one of the behavioral economics gems that I have ever read, elaborating not only the mental processes and hurdles of quitting but also providing a guide to quit and select your next endeavor. There are many takeaways from this book and similar to any other well researched and referenced books, one-fifth of the book highlights the citations, suggesting that it is a well rounded literature.
Overall this is an easy read, and if you are a fan of the behavioral economics genre form authors such as Dan Ariely, Malcolm Gladwell, and Richard Thaler, you will enjoy reading this. Despite being an easy read, this is not an in-flight book but a late evening book read over tea or wine. This will allow you the mental space to absorb concepts and the time to sleep over your after thoughts.
Feature Image Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Savvy Munshi 