# Quit  Author:: Annie Duke ## Highlights > Persistence is not always the best decision, certainly not absent context. And context changes. The same grit that helped Ali become such a great champion—admired and revered almost without equal—became his undoing when it drove him to ignore signs that were obvious to anyone on the outside looking in that he should quit. That’s the funny thing about grit. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is in figuring out the difference. ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=209)) > Success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right thing to stick to and quitting the rest. ([Location 238](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=238)) ### CHAPTER 1 The Opposite of a Great Virtue Is Also a Great Virtue > A turnaround time is, simply put, the time at which climbers are to stop their ascent, even if they haven’t yet reached their destination, and return to camp. Turnaround times are meant to protect climbers from putting themselves in danger on the descent, which requires more skill than ascending the mountain. ([Location 373](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=373)) > The first is that persistence is not always a virtue. Whether it is prudent to continue up the mountain depends both on the climbing conditions and the condition of the climbers. When those conditions warrant quitting, it is a good decision to heed those signals. ([Location 385](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=385)) > The second is that making a plan for when to quit should be done long before you are facing the quitting decision. It recognizes, as Daniel Kahneman has pointed out, that the worst time to make a decision is when you’re “in it.” ([Location 387](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=387)) > Third, and perhaps most important, the turnaround time is a reminder that the real goal in climbing Everest is not to reach the summit. It is, understandably, the focus of enormous attention, but the ultimate goal, in the broadest, most realistic sense, is to return safely to the base of the mountain. ([Location 391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=391)) > Despite the way grit and quit have been pitted against each other, they are actually two sides of the exact same decision. Anytime that you are deciding whether to quit, you are obviously simultaneously deciding whether to stick, and vice versa. ([Location 457](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=457)) > after you’ve set out on a particular course of action, new information will reveal itself to you. And that information is critical feedback. Sometimes, that new information will be new facts. Sometimes, it might be different ways to think about or model a problem or a set of data or the facts you already have. Sometimes, it will be a discovery about your own preferences. And, of course, some of that new information will be about which future you happen to observe, a good one or a bad one. ([Location 476](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=476)) > Silicon Valley is famous for mantras like “move fast and break things” and implementing them through strategies like “minimum viable product” (MVP). These types of agile strategies can only work if you have the option to quit. You can’t put out an MVP unless you have the ability to pull it back. The whole point is to get information quickly, so you can quit the stuff that isn’t working and stick with the things that are worthwhile or develop new things that might work even better. ([Location 486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=486)) > While it is true that quitting is one of your most important tools for making good decisions under uncertainty, it is also true that uncertainty is an impediment to making good decisions about quitting. That’s because quitting is, itself, a decision made under uncertainty. Just as you can’t be 100% sure how a decision is going to turn out when you enter into a course of action, you also can’t be 100% sure how it will turn out when you are considering exiting it. ([Location 523](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=523)) ## New highlights added January 20, 2024 at 5:04 PM > When you are weighing whether to quit something or stick with it, you can’t know for sure whether you can succeed at what you’re doing because that’s probabilistic. But there is a crucial difference between the two choices. Only one choice—the choice to persevere—lets you eventually find out the answer. The desire for certainty is the siren song calling us to persevere, because perseverance is the only path to knowing for sure how things will turn out if you stay the course. If you choose to quit, you will always be left to wonder, “What if?” Just as the Sirens of mythology lured sailors toward their song, we are lured to persevering because we want to know. It’s the only way to avoid those “what ifs.” The problem, of course, is that sometimes, the siren song lures you toward a rocky shoal that breaks your ship apart. Or it leads you to your death at the top of Everest. ([Location 533](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=533)) > Chapter 1 Summary We tend to celebrate people who respond to adversity by soldiering on. The quitters, in comparison, are invisible. If we don’t notice the decision-making of the quitters, it’s hard to learn from them. Quitting a course of action is sometimes the best way to win in the long run, whether you’re cutting your losses at the poker table or getting to climb another day. Quit and grit are two sides of the exact same decision. Decision-making in the real world requires action without complete information. Quitting is the tool that allows us to react to new information that is revealed after we make a decision. Sticking with a course of action is the only way to find out for sure how it will turn out. Quitting requires being okay with not knowing what might have been. Having the option to quit helps you to explore more, learn more, and ultimately find the right things to stick with. ([Location 627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=627)) ### CHAPTER 2 Quitting On Time Usually Feels Like Quitting Too Early > Butterfield came up with a code name for the tool, based on the acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.” Slack. It stuck. ([Location 719](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=719)) > If you quit on time, it’s not going to seem like anything particularly dire is happening at that particular moment. That’s because quitting is a problem of being able to glimpse at the range of ways the future might play out and see that the likelihood that things will turn out poorly is too high to make it worth your while to continue. ([Location 729](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=729)) ## New highlights added January 20, 2024 at 6:05 PM > There is a well-known heuristic in management consulting that the right time to fire someone is the first time it crosses your mind. This heuristic is meant to get businesses to the decision sooner, because most managers are reluctant to terminate personnel, hanging on to them too long. ([Location 752](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=752)) > To get the stick-or-quit decision right, you need to make an educated guess at the probability that things will go your way and the probability that things will go against you, in order to figure out if the good stuff will occur enough of the time to warrant continuing on your path. Essentially, you need to think in expected value, which is what Stewart Butterfield was doing. Expected value (or EV) helps you answer two questions. First, it tells you whether any option you are considering is going to be, on balance, positive or negative for you in the long run. Second, it allows you to compare different options to figure out which is the better choice, the better choice being simply the one that carries the highest expected value. ([Location 777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=777)) > To determine the expected value for any course of action, you start with identifying the range of reasonable possible outcomes. Some of those outcomes will be good and some will be bad, to varying degrees, and each of those outcomes will have some probability of occurring. If you multiply the probability of each outcome occurring by how good or bad it might be and add all that together, that gets you the expected value. ([Location 783](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=783)) > The second step is to compare that expected value with the expected value of other options you might be considering. ([Location 803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=803)) > when you are a good quitter, often you’re the only one able to read it. ([Location 818](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=818)) > When he followed up with the coin flippers two and six months later, he discovered that for the big life decisions, people who quit were happier on average than people who stuck, whether they quit on their own or after the coin flipped in favor of quitting. While the decisions may have felt close to the people making them, they were not actually close at all. As judged by the participants’ happiness, quitting was the clear winner. Because people were much happier when they quit what they considered a close decision, that shows that people are generally quitting too late. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=919)) > If you feel like you’ve got a close call between quitting and persevering, it’s likely that quitting is the better choice. ([Location 932](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=932)) > Chapter 2 Summary Quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early. The hardest time to make a quitting decision is when you’re in it. Our intuition is that quitting will slow down our progress. The reverse is actually true. If you walk away from something that is no longer worthwhile, that frees you up to switch to something that is more likely to help you achieve your goals—and you’ll get there faster. When the time is objectively right to quit, nothing particularly dire will be happening right at that moment. Getting the timing right means looking into the future and seeing that the chances things will go your way are too slim. Thinking in expected value helps you figure out if the path you are on is worth sticking to. EV is not just about money. It can be measured in health, well-being, happiness, time, self-fulfillment, satisfaction in relationships, or anything else that affects you. If you feel like the choice between persevering and walking away is a close call, it’s likely that quitting is the better choice. In hindsight, we can see when someone has waited too long to quit, and we tend to be harsh in our judgment of those people. But when someone quits before it seems obvious to others, we mock them for quitting too early. That’s the quitting bind. ([Location 995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=995)) ### CHAPTER 3 Should I Stay, or Should I Go? > Prospect theory is a model of how people make decisions, accounting for systematic preferences and biases involving risk, uncertainty, gains, and losses. One of the key findings of prospect theory is loss aversion, recognizing that the emotional impact of a loss is greater than the corresponding impact of an equivalent gain. In fact, losing feels about two times as bad to us as winning feels good to us. When we’re choosing among new options, loss aversion causes us to favor the ones that have the lowest absolute loss associated with them, even if those options come at a lower expected value. In other words, our aversion to taking a loss causes us to make decisions a rational actor would not. ([Location 1064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1064)) > That difference exposes an asymmetry in when we want to walk away and when we want to gamble. When we are in the gains, we don’t want to recruit luck into the equation, luck that might wipe out what we have already won. We want to quit while we’re ahead. But when we are in the losses, we’ll take the gamble, recruiting luck into the equation in the hopes that we can wipe out what we have already lost. All of a sudden, uncertainty doesn’t bother us. When we’re losing, we want luck to be involved. ([Location 1087](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1087)) > Given these findings, let’s amend our quitting aphorism to say: Quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early, and the usually part is specifically when you’re in the losses. ([Location 1119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1119)) > The result is that we’ll quit when we’re ahead, even if we’re giving up good opportunities to win more. If we’re behind, we don’t want to quit, even if persisting—to try to get to the other side of zero—is more likely to make things worse. ([Location 1162](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1162)) > Chapter 3 Summary A key finding of prospect theory is loss aversion, the phenomenon whereby the emotional impact of a loss is greater than the corresponding impact of an equivalent gain. Loss aversion creates a preference for options associated with a lower chance of incurring a loss. It makes us risk averse. When we are in the gains, we have a tendency to quit too early in order to avoid the risk of giving those gains back. In other words, we like to quit while we’re ahead. When we are in the losses, we become risk seekers. We want to keep going, hoping we can avoid ever having to realize the loss. Daniel Kahneman has characterized this as sure-loss aversion. In other words, we like to stick when we’re behind. Quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early, and the usually part is specifically when you’re in the losses. Retail investors show this pattern of quitting when they’re ahead and sticking when they’re behind. Even expert investors don’t get their quitting decisions just right. They outperform on their buying decisions but underperform on their selling decisions. We naturally track and get feedback on the things we are doing. But once we quit something, we also quit keeping track of that course of action. This creates a problem with getting high-quality feedback, which in turn makes it hard to hone our quitting skills. ([Location 1245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1245)) ### INTERLUDE I Quitting When the World Is Watching ### CHAPTER 4 Escalating Commitment > There are all sorts of ways we get stuck in our decisions. Presented with the opportunity and the relevant information, we will over-persist, rejecting the chance to quit and backing up our original decision by spending even more resources to try to save the endeavor. This is true whether it involves spending more time waiting in line or waging an unwinnable war, or staying in bad relationships and bad jobs too long, or pouring money into a car that’s worth less than the repairs are costing us. It’s why a house can become a money pit. It’s why we won’t leave a terrible movie because we have already started watching it. It’s why businesses continue to develop and support products that are clearly failing, or pursue strategies long after conditions have changed. ([Location 1472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1472)) > Chapter 4 Summary When we are in the losses, we are not only more likely to stick to a losing course of action, but also to double down. This tendency is called escalation of commitment. Escalation of commitment is robust and universal, occurring in individuals, organizations, and governmental entities. All of us tend to get stuck in courses of action once started, especially in the face of bad news. Escalation of commitment doesn’t just occur in high-stakes situations. It also happens when the stakes are low, demonstrating the pervasiveness of the error. ([Location 1481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1481)) ### CHAPTER 5 Sunk Cost and the Fear of Waste ## New highlights added January 20, 2024 at 7:05 PM > Richard Thaler, in 1980, was the first to point to the sunk cost effect as a general phenomenon, describing it as a systematic cognitive error in which people take into account money, time, effort, or any other resources they have previously sunk into an endeavor when making decisions about whether to continue and spend more. ([Location 1549](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1549)) > Put simply, the sunk cost effect causes people to stick in situations that they ought to be quitting. ([Location 1556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1556)) > How Big Does the Katamari Grow? ([Location 1684](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1684)) > When we start something, whether it’s putting money into the pot in a hand of poker, or starting a relationship or a job, or buying a stock, we open up a mental account. When we exit that thing, whether it’s folding a hand, or leaving a relationship or job, or selling the stock, we close that mental account. It turns out that we just don’t like to close mental accounts in the losses. ([Location 1730](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1730)) > The instruction to treat it as a new decision did practically nothing to reduce escalation of commitment. Just knowing about the sunk cost effect doesn’t help. The Jedi mind trick doesn’t help. That’s a lot of bad news about sunk cost. ([Location 1799](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1799)) > Chapter 5 Summary The sunk cost effect is a cognitive illusion where people take into account resources they have previously sunk into an endeavor when making decisions about whether to continue and spend more. The sunk cost effect causes people to stick in situations that they ought to be quitting. When deciding whether to stick or quit, we are worried that if we walk away, we will have wasted the resources we have spent in the trying. You might be experiencing the sunk cost fallacy if you hear yourself thinking “If I don’t make this work I will have wasted years of my life!” or “We can’t fire her now, she’s been here for decades!” Sunk costs snowball, like a katamari. The resources you have already spent make it less likely you will quit, which makes it more likely you will accumulate additional sunk costs, which makes it again less likely you will quit, and so on. The growing debris of your prior commitment makes it increasingly harder to walk away. We don’t like to close mental accounts in the losses. Knowing about the sunk cost effect doesn’t keep you from falling prey to it. You can’t trick yourself into not taking sunk costs into account by trying to view the situation as a new choice. Asking whether or not you would continue if the decision were a fresh one doesn’t mitigate the sunk cost effect the way you might intuitively think it would. ([Location 1803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1803)) ### CHAPTER 6 Monkeys and Pedestals > The bottleneck, the hard thing, is training a monkey to juggle flaming torches. The point of this mental model is to remind you that there is no point building the pedestal if you can’t train the monkey. In other words, you ought to tackle the hardest part of the problem first. “Monkeys and pedestals” has become part of the language of the organization. When X-ers give project presentations, you’ll see #MONKEYFIRST and icons of monkeys. That’s their way of identifying the hard thing they have to do for the project to be worth pursuing. The lesson here is, when you’re starting your business, the first thing you tackle shouldn’t be designing the perfect business card or investing in the most beautiful logo or coming up with the coolest name. ([Location 1868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1868)) > If we can identify in advance what the signals are that we should pay attention to and make a plan for how we will react to them, we can increase the chances that we’ll cut our losses when we ought to. ([Location 1931](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1931)) > That list offers you a set of kill criteria, literally criteria for killing a project or changing your mind or cutting your losses. It’s one of the best tools for helping you figure out when to quit closer to on time. Kill criteria could consist of information you learn that tells you the monkey isn’t trainable or that you’re not sufficiently likely to reach your goal, or signs that luck has gone against you. ([Location 1936](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1936)) > another strategy that did work was having one group set benchmarks in the form of minimum targets for sales and profits in advance of the first decision. Those participants, after getting the data about the poor performance, allocated just $3.9 million to the same product they chose earlier. Their allocation now looked the same as those of participants who were actually fresh to the decision. And it was a big reduction compared with others who made both allocations but hadn’t set benchmarks. This is in line with lots of subsequent work that’s been done on all sorts of precommitment contracts. Whether it comes to following through with diet plans or work plans or study plans, these types of precommitment contracts get people to act more rationally. Essentially, kill criteria create a precommitment contract to quit. ([Location 1954](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1954)) > When you start dating someone, think ahead. What could be happening that would make you think that it was time to end the relationship? ([Location 1962](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1962)) > Imagine you were pursuing a lead that came through an RFP (request for proposal) or RFI (request for information). It’s six months from now, and you have lost the deal. Looking back, you realize there were early signals that the deal was not going to close. What were they? In general, this idea of casting yourself into the future, imagining a failure, and then looking back to try to figure out why is called a premortem. Using a premortem is a great tool to help develop high-quality kill criteria. ([Location 1988](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1988)) > The best quitting criteria combine two things: a state and a date. A state is just what it sounds like, an objective, measurable condition you or your project is in, a benchmark that you have hit or missed. A date is the when. Kill criteria, generally, include both states and dates, in the form of “If I am (or am not) in a particular state at a particular date or at a particular time, then I have to quit.” Or “If I haven’t done X by Y (time), I’ll quit.” Or “If I haven’t achieved X by the time I’ve spent Y (amount in money, effort, time, or other resources), I should quit.” ([Location 2031](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2031)) > Chapter 6 Summary Monkeys and pedestals is a mental model that helps you quit sooner. Pedestals are the part of the problem you know you can already solve, like designing the perfect business card or logo. The hardest thing is training the monkey. When faced with a complex, ambitious goal, (a) identify the hard thing first; (b) try to solve for that as quickly as possible; and (c) beware of false progress. Building pedestals creates the illusion that you are making progress toward your goal, but doing the easy stuff is a waste of time if the hard stuff is actually impossible. Tackling the monkey first gets you to no faster, limiting the time, effort, and money you sink into a project, making it easier to walk away. When we butt up against a hard problem we can’t solve, we have a tendency to turn to pedestal-building rather than choosing to quit. Advance planning and precommitment contracts increase the chances you will quit sooner. When you enter into a course of action, create a set of kill criteria. This is a list of signals you might see in the future that would tell you it’s time to quit. Kill criteria will help inoculate you against bad decision-making when you’re “in it” by limiting the number of decisions you’ll have to make once you’re already in the gains or in the losses. In organizations, kill criteria allow people a different way to get rewarded beyond dogged and blind pursuit of a project until the bitter end. A common, simple way to develop kill criteria is with “states and dates:” “If by (date), I have/haven’t (reached a particular state), I’ll quit.” ([Location 2108](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2108)) ## New highlights added January 20, 2024 at 9:04 PM ### CHAPTER 7 You Own What You’ve Bought and What You’ve Thought: Endowment and Status Quo Bias > When we own something, we value it more highly than an identical item that we do not own. Richard Thaler was the first to name this cognitive illusion, calling it the endowment effect. In fact, he introduced the endowment effect in that same 1980 paper where he coined the term “sunk cost.” He described the endowment effect as “the fact that people often demand more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.” ([Location 2271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2271)) > The endowment effect adds more mass to the katamari, beyond what is already added by the sunk cost effect. As you start on a course of action and as you make subsequent decisions to continue on that course of action, not only are you accumulating more sunk costs, but you’re becoming more endowed to your ideas, to the belief that you’re on the right course. As you build things, whether they’re train tracks, or bookshelves, or relationships, or essays that you’ve written for classes, the endowment effect gaffs the scale even more, further escalating our commitment to failing causes. ([Location 2357](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2357)) > The endowment and sunk cost effects live together in a way that amplifies escalation of commitment. Status quo bias adds to the mix of cognitive forces gaffing the scale. Simply put, the status quo is the path you’re already on or the way you’ve always done things. The bias is that we have a preference to stick with those decisions, methods, and paths that we’ve already set upon, and a resistance to veering from them into something new or different. ([Location 2418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2418)) > Another of the factors that cause us to hew to the status quo is an asymmetry in the way we experience loss aversion. We are much more bothered by the downside potential of changing course than we are by the downside potential of staying on the path we’re already on. ([Location 2431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2431)) > Wrapped within all these forces interfering with quitting decisions is that we do not think of sticking with the status quo as an active decision in the same way that we view switching as one. We are much more concerned with errors of commission than errors of omission (failures to act). We’re more wary of “causing” a bad outcome by acting than “letting it happen” through inaction. This phenomenon is known as omission-commission bias. ([Location 2444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2444)) ## New highlights added January 20, 2024 at 10:04 PM > Chapter 7 Summary The endowment effect is a cognitive bias where we value something we own more than we would if we didn’t own it. We can be endowed to objects but also to our own ideas and beliefs. Endowment is an obstacle to quitting because when we irrationally value things we own, we miscalculate their expected value. We might think the company we started or the project we devised or the belief we have is worth more than it actually is. We prefer to stick with the status quo. We are more tolerant of bad outcomes that come from sticking with what we are already doing than bad outcomes that come from switching to something new. This phenomenon is part of omission-commission bias. When you say, “I’m just not ready to decide yet,” what you are really saying is, “For now, I am choosing the status quo.” Even in highly data-rich environments like professional sports, sunk cost, endowment, and status quo bias distort decision-making. ([Location 2514](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2514)) ### CHAPTER 8 The Hardest Thing to Quit Is Who You Are: Identity and Dissonance > When your identity is what you do, then what you do becomes hard to abandon, because it means quitting who you are. ([Location 2680](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2680)) > Like the other forces we’ve explored, cognitive dissonance adds debris to the katamari, making it harder to quit. Every time you rationalize away new information in order to cling to a belief, that belief becomes more tightly woven into the fabric of your identity. The act of rejecting the facts becomes circular. Now the next time you discover conflicting information or your actions don’t align with your beliefs, you’re going to be even more motivated to stick to those beliefs. ([Location 2707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2707)) > You might think that would move your decisions to a more accurate place, but the opposite is true. Thinking about how you will be judged if you quit makes you move further from that benchmark of rationality. You end up quitting less and committing more. ([Location 2751](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2751)) > The lesson in all this is that we need to be careful about tying our identity to any single thing that we believe. And we need to be particularly cautious when a belief is outside the mainstream and public because it is so much harder to let go of those beliefs, facts be damned. ([Location 2784](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2784)) > Be picky about what you stick to. Persevere in the things that matter, that bring you happiness, and that move you toward your goals. Quit everything else, to free up those resources so you can pursue your goals and stop sticking to things that slow you down. ([Location 2829](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2829)) > Chapter 8 Summary When it comes to quitting, the most painful thing to quit is who you are. Our ideas, beliefs, and actions are part of our identity. When new information conflicts with a belief, we experience cognitive dissonance. To resolve the conflict, we can either change the belief or rationalize away the new information. Too often, we choose the latter. Dissonance can also result from new information coming into conflict with our past actions. We have a desire to maintain internal consistency, where our past beliefs and actions line up with our present beliefs and actions. We also want others to view us as consistent. We worry that if others see inconsistency between our present and past decisions, beliefs, or actions, they will judge us as being wrong, irrational, capricious, and prone to mistakes. When we know or believe our decisions are being evaluated by others, our intuition is that we will be more rational, but the opposite is true. External validity increases escalation of commitment. The more extreme a position is, the more cognitive gymnastics we’ll do to defend it. The facts are more likely to persuade you away from the consensus opinion than a fringe view. Fears about how others will view us if we quit are usually overblown. ([Location 2836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2836)) ### CHAPTER 9 Find Someone Who Loves You but Doesn’t Care about Hurt Feelings > When I asked Daniel Kahneman what he thinks the secret is to being a good quitter, he told me, “What everybody needs is the friend who really loves them but does not care much about hurt feelings in the moment.” When you are in it, facing down the decision about whether to walk away or stay the course, that is when your decision-making is the most vulnerable to the host of cognitive biases that make it hard for you to quit. Kahneman’s insight is that an outside observer, like a friend or a loved one, is much more likely to have a rational view on your situation, because they are not in it with you. The problem is that when you are the outside observer and you can see that somebody is on a losing path, you are likely to think that withholding the hard truth is the nice thing to do, because you know it will hurt them to hear it. But in sparing their feelings, in trying to be nice, you’re denying them the opportunity to see what you see. ([Location 2974](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2974)) > When you find that friend, ask them to be your quitting coach, to be that person who helps you figure out when to abandon course. ([Location 2985](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2985)) > For your relationship with your quitting coach to work, you have to give them permission to act in that role. That includes explicitly committing to being open to hearing the hard truths that they may have to tell you. ([Location 3057](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3057)) > When people ask for advice, don’t confuse that with being given permission. Instead, when someone comes to you, it’s better to use Ron Conway’s approach, which can be summarized in these four steps. STEP 1 | Let them know that you think they should consider quitting. STEP 2 | When they push back, retreat and agree with them that they can turn the situation around. STEP 3 | Set very clear definitions around what success is going to look like in the near future and memorialize them down as kill criteria. STEP 4 | Agree to revisit the conversation and, if the benchmarks for success haven’t been met, you’ll have a serious discussion about quitting. ([Location 3069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3069)) > Chapter 9 Summary Optimism makes you less likely to walk away while not actually increasing your chances of success. That means that being overly optimistic will make you stick to things longer that aren’t worthwhile. Better to be well calibrated. Life’s too short to spend your time on opportunities that are no longer worthwhile. When someone is on the outside looking in, they can usually see your situation more rationally than you can. The best quitting coach is a person who loves you enough to look out for your long-term well-being. They are willing to tell you the hard truth even if it means risking hurt feelings in the short term. Decisions about when to quit improve when the people who make the decisions to start things are different from the people who make the decisions to stop those things. Getting the most out of a quitting coach requires permission to speak the truth. ([Location 3097](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3097)) ### CHAPTER 10 Lessons from Forced Quitting > Sometimes, you make the choice to quit and sometimes the world makes that choice for you. ([Location 3192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3192)) > One of the goals for all of us should be to, as much as possible, maximize the diversification of interests, skills, and opportunities in each of our portfolios. ([Location 3428](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3428)) > Diversification doesn’t just afford you a softer landing if you’re forced to quit. It also helps you to make more rational decisions about walking away from something that’s no longer worth pursuing. That’s because it’s easier to walk away when you know what you’re walking toward. Having other options available takes away some of the uncertainty about what comes next that can prevent you from quitting. ([Location 3443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3443)) > Chapter 10 Summary Being forced to quit forces you to start exploring new options and opportunities. But you should start exploring before you’re forced to. Even after you have found a path that you want to stick to, keep doing some exploration. Things change, and whatever you are doing now may not be the best path for you to pursue in the future. Having more options gives you something to switch to when the time is right. Exploration helps you to diversify your portfolio of skills, interests, and opportunities. A diversified portfolio helps to protect you against uncertainty. Backup plans are good to have especially because some backup plans can turn out to be better than what we’re already pursuing. ([Location 3503](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3503)) ### CHAPTER 11 The Myopia of Goals > Once you start the race, success is only measured against crossing the finish line. And even a broken leg won’t make us quit when facing the choice between falling short or continuing on in pain. ([Location 3548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3548)) > But just because there are a lot of benefits to setting goals doesn’t mean that there isn’t a downside to them as well. As you might already suspect, clearly defined finish lines should come with a warning: Danger, you may experience escalation of commitment. ([Location 3555](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3555)) > Exacerbating the pass-fail problem is that once we establish a goal, we rarely revisit it. Goals tend to be set-it-and-forget-it. The finish line doesn’t move. ([Location 3623](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3623)) > Either explicitly or implicitly, the goal you set is a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’ll bear to get them. ([Location 3645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3645)) > To achieve the things we want to achieve, we have to be responsive to the way the world is changing around us and the way that we ourselves are changing. That would mean unfixing our goals, but we don’t naturally do that. In combination, the pass-fail and fixed nature of goals causes us to just keep on toward the finish line, even when the finish line is no longer what we should be running toward. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. ([Location 3652](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3652)) > To make these unlesses most effective, we need to create strong precommitment contracts that set out how we’re going to follow through on those kill criteria. Then, to make sure that we’re picking the unlesses that are going to get us to the fastest answer about whether the thing we’re doing is worth pursuing, we need to do the work of identifying monkeys and pedestals. Doing this work with a quitting coach who can hold you accountable to those unlesses is even better. These unlesses, of course, require advance planning. You’re trying to anticipate as many scenarios that might unfold as possible. But you can’t anticipate every circumstance under which you might stick and every circumstance under which you might quit. That means you have to keep checking back in on the cost-benefit analysis that the goal is a proxy for. You should reevaluate, on a regular cadence, whether the values that you’re trying to privilege are still being privileged and whether the values that you’re deprivileging, the costs that you’re bearing, are still worth it. Those check-ins also offer an opportunity to reevaluate old kill criteria and set new ones. ([Location 3674](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3674)) > We need to redefine what “failed” and “wasted” mean. When we worry that quitting means we’ve failed, what exactly are we failing at? If you quit something that’s no longer worth pursuing, that’s not a failure. That’s a success. The way we naturally think about failure is to have stopped something short of the goal, as in failing to make it to the finish line. But if you’re continuing to pursue something that’s no longer worth pursuing, isn’t that a failure? How do we start to redefine that and think about failure as failing to follow a good decision process? Success means following a good decision process, not just crossing a finish line, especially if it is the wrong one to cross. That means appropriately following kill criteria, listening to our quitting coaches, and recognizing that the progress we’ve made along the way counts for a lot. ([Location 3775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3775)) > Contrary to popular belief, winners quit a lot. That’s how they win. ([Location 3795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3795)) > Chapter 11 Summary Goals can make it possible to achieve worthwhile things, but goals can also increase the chances that we will escalate commitment when we should quit. Goals are pass-fail in nature. You either reach the finish line or you don’t, and progress along the way matters very little. Don’t just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don’t reach the goal. Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’re willing to bear. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one “unless” and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal. In general, when we quit, we fear two things: that we’ve failed and that we’ve wasted our time, effort, or money. Waste is a forward-looking problem, not a backward-looking one. ([Location 3797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3797)) --- Title: Quit Author: Annie Duke Tags: readwise, books date: 2024-01-30 --- # Quit  Author:: Annie Duke ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > Persistence is not always the best decision, certainly not absent context. And context changes. The same grit that helped Ali become such a great champion—admired and revered almost without equal—became his undoing when it drove him to ignore signs that were obvious to anyone on the outside looking in that he should quit. That’s the funny thing about grit. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is in figuring out the difference. ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=209)) > Success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right thing to stick to and quitting the rest. ([Location 238](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=238)) ### CHAPTER 1 The Opposite of a Great Virtue Is Also a Great Virtue > A turnaround time is, simply put, the time at which climbers are to stop their ascent, even if they haven’t yet reached their destination, and return to camp. Turnaround times are meant to protect climbers from putting themselves in danger on the descent, which requires more skill than ascending the mountain. ([Location 373](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=373)) > The first is that persistence is not always a virtue. Whether it is prudent to continue up the mountain depends both on the climbing conditions and the condition of the climbers. When those conditions warrant quitting, it is a good decision to heed those signals. ([Location 385](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=385)) > The second is that making a plan for when to quit should be done long before you are facing the quitting decision. It recognizes, as Daniel Kahneman has pointed out, that the worst time to make a decision is when you’re “in it.” ([Location 387](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=387)) > Third, and perhaps most important, the turnaround time is a reminder that the real goal in climbing Everest is not to reach the summit. It is, understandably, the focus of enormous attention, but the ultimate goal, in the broadest, most realistic sense, is to return safely to the base of the mountain. ([Location 391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=391)) > Despite the way grit and quit have been pitted against each other, they are actually two sides of the exact same decision. Anytime that you are deciding whether to quit, you are obviously simultaneously deciding whether to stick, and vice versa. ([Location 457](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=457)) > after you’ve set out on a particular course of action, new information will reveal itself to you. And that information is critical feedback. Sometimes, that new information will be new facts. Sometimes, it might be different ways to think about or model a problem or a set of data or the facts you already have. Sometimes, it will be a discovery about your own preferences. And, of course, some of that new information will be about which future you happen to observe, a good one or a bad one. ([Location 476](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=476)) > Silicon Valley is famous for mantras like “move fast and break things” and implementing them through strategies like “minimum viable product” (MVP). These types of agile strategies can only work if you have the option to quit. You can’t put out an MVP unless you have the ability to pull it back. The whole point is to get information quickly, so you can quit the stuff that isn’t working and stick with the things that are worthwhile or develop new things that might work even better. ([Location 486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=486)) > While it is true that quitting is one of your most important tools for making good decisions under uncertainty, it is also true that uncertainty is an impediment to making good decisions about quitting. That’s because quitting is, itself, a decision made under uncertainty. Just as you can’t be 100% sure how a decision is going to turn out when you enter into a course of action, you also can’t be 100% sure how it will turn out when you are considering exiting it. ([Location 523](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=523)) > When you are weighing whether to quit something or stick with it, you can’t know for sure whether you can succeed at what you’re doing because that’s probabilistic. But there is a crucial difference between the two choices. Only one choice—the choice to persevere—lets you eventually find out the answer. The desire for certainty is the siren song calling us to persevere, because perseverance is the only path to knowing for sure how things will turn out if you stay the course. If you choose to quit, you will always be left to wonder, “What if?” Just as the Sirens of mythology lured sailors toward their song, we are lured to persevering because we want to know. It’s the only way to avoid those “what ifs.” The problem, of course, is that sometimes, the siren song lures you toward a rocky shoal that breaks your ship apart. Or it leads you to your death at the top of Everest. ([Location 533](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=533)) > Chapter 1 Summary We tend to celebrate people who respond to adversity by soldiering on. The quitters, in comparison, are invisible. If we don’t notice the decision-making of the quitters, it’s hard to learn from them. Quitting a course of action is sometimes the best way to win in the long run, whether you’re cutting your losses at the poker table or getting to climb another day. Quit and grit are two sides of the exact same decision. Decision-making in the real world requires action without complete information. Quitting is the tool that allows us to react to new information that is revealed after we make a decision. Sticking with a course of action is the only way to find out for sure how it will turn out. Quitting requires being okay with not knowing what might have been. Having the option to quit helps you to explore more, learn more, and ultimately find the right things to stick with. ([Location 627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=627)) ### CHAPTER 2 Quitting On Time Usually Feels Like Quitting Too Early > Butterfield came up with a code name for the tool, based on the acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.” Slack. It stuck. ([Location 719](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=719)) > If you quit on time, it’s not going to seem like anything particularly dire is happening at that particular moment. That’s because quitting is a problem of being able to glimpse at the range of ways the future might play out and see that the likelihood that things will turn out poorly is too high to make it worth your while to continue. ([Location 729](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=729)) > There is a well-known heuristic in management consulting that the right time to fire someone is the first time it crosses your mind. This heuristic is meant to get businesses to the decision sooner, because most managers are reluctant to terminate personnel, hanging on to them too long. ([Location 752](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=752)) > To get the stick-or-quit decision right, you need to make an educated guess at the probability that things will go your way and the probability that things will go against you, in order to figure out if the good stuff will occur enough of the time to warrant continuing on your path. Essentially, you need to think in expected value, which is what Stewart Butterfield was doing. Expected value (or EV) helps you answer two questions. First, it tells you whether any option you are considering is going to be, on balance, positive or negative for you in the long run. Second, it allows you to compare different options to figure out which is the better choice, the better choice being simply the one that carries the highest expected value. ([Location 777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=777)) > To determine the expected value for any course of action, you start with identifying the range of reasonable possible outcomes. Some of those outcomes will be good and some will be bad, to varying degrees, and each of those outcomes will have some probability of occurring. If you multiply the probability of each outcome occurring by how good or bad it might be and add all that together, that gets you the expected value. ([Location 783](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=783)) > The second step is to compare that expected value with the expected value of other options you might be considering. ([Location 803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=803)) > when you are a good quitter, often you’re the only one able to read it. ([Location 818](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=818)) > When he followed up with the coin flippers two and six months later, he discovered that for the big life decisions, people who quit were happier on average than people who stuck, whether they quit on their own or after the coin flipped in favor of quitting. While the decisions may have felt close to the people making them, they were not actually close at all. As judged by the participants’ happiness, quitting was the clear winner. Because people were much happier when they quit what they considered a close decision, that shows that people are generally quitting too late. ([Location 919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=919)) > If you feel like you’ve got a close call between quitting and persevering, it’s likely that quitting is the better choice. ([Location 932](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=932)) > Chapter 2 Summary Quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early. The hardest time to make a quitting decision is when you’re in it. Our intuition is that quitting will slow down our progress. The reverse is actually true. If you walk away from something that is no longer worthwhile, that frees you up to switch to something that is more likely to help you achieve your goals—and you’ll get there faster. When the time is objectively right to quit, nothing particularly dire will be happening right at that moment. Getting the timing right means looking into the future and seeing that the chances things will go your way are too slim. Thinking in expected value helps you figure out if the path you are on is worth sticking to. EV is not just about money. It can be measured in health, well-being, happiness, time, self-fulfillment, satisfaction in relationships, or anything else that affects you. If you feel like the choice between persevering and walking away is a close call, it’s likely that quitting is the better choice. In hindsight, we can see when someone has waited too long to quit, and we tend to be harsh in our judgment of those people. But when someone quits before it seems obvious to others, we mock them for quitting too early. That’s the quitting bind. ([Location 995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=995)) ### CHAPTER 3 Should I Stay, or Should I Go? > Prospect theory is a model of how people make decisions, accounting for systematic preferences and biases involving risk, uncertainty, gains, and losses. One of the key findings of prospect theory is loss aversion, recognizing that the emotional impact of a loss is greater than the corresponding impact of an equivalent gain. In fact, losing feels about two times as bad to us as winning feels good to us. When we’re choosing among new options, loss aversion causes us to favor the ones that have the lowest absolute loss associated with them, even if those options come at a lower expected value. In other words, our aversion to taking a loss causes us to make decisions a rational actor would not. ([Location 1064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1064)) > That difference exposes an asymmetry in when we want to walk away and when we want to gamble. When we are in the gains, we don’t want to recruit luck into the equation, luck that might wipe out what we have already won. We want to quit while we’re ahead. But when we are in the losses, we’ll take the gamble, recruiting luck into the equation in the hopes that we can wipe out what we have already lost. All of a sudden, uncertainty doesn’t bother us. When we’re losing, we want luck to be involved. ([Location 1087](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1087)) > Given these findings, let’s amend our quitting aphorism to say: Quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early, and the usually part is specifically when you’re in the losses. ([Location 1119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1119)) > The result is that we’ll quit when we’re ahead, even if we’re giving up good opportunities to win more. If we’re behind, we don’t want to quit, even if persisting—to try to get to the other side of zero—is more likely to make things worse. ([Location 1162](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1162)) > Chapter 3 Summary A key finding of prospect theory is loss aversion, the phenomenon whereby the emotional impact of a loss is greater than the corresponding impact of an equivalent gain. Loss aversion creates a preference for options associated with a lower chance of incurring a loss. It makes us risk averse. When we are in the gains, we have a tendency to quit too early in order to avoid the risk of giving those gains back. In other words, we like to quit while we’re ahead. When we are in the losses, we become risk seekers. We want to keep going, hoping we can avoid ever having to realize the loss. Daniel Kahneman has characterized this as sure-loss aversion. In other words, we like to stick when we’re behind. Quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early, and the usually part is specifically when you’re in the losses. Retail investors show this pattern of quitting when they’re ahead and sticking when they’re behind. Even expert investors don’t get their quitting decisions just right. They outperform on their buying decisions but underperform on their selling decisions. We naturally track and get feedback on the things we are doing. But once we quit something, we also quit keeping track of that course of action. This creates a problem with getting high-quality feedback, which in turn makes it hard to hone our quitting skills. ([Location 1245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1245)) ### INTERLUDE I Quitting When the World Is Watching ### CHAPTER 4 Escalating Commitment > There are all sorts of ways we get stuck in our decisions. Presented with the opportunity and the relevant information, we will over-persist, rejecting the chance to quit and backing up our original decision by spending even more resources to try to save the endeavor. This is true whether it involves spending more time waiting in line or waging an unwinnable war, or staying in bad relationships and bad jobs too long, or pouring money into a car that’s worth less than the repairs are costing us. It’s why a house can become a money pit. It’s why we won’t leave a terrible movie because we have already started watching it. It’s why businesses continue to develop and support products that are clearly failing, or pursue strategies long after conditions have changed. ([Location 1472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1472)) > Chapter 4 Summary When we are in the losses, we are not only more likely to stick to a losing course of action, but also to double down. This tendency is called escalation of commitment. Escalation of commitment is robust and universal, occurring in individuals, organizations, and governmental entities. All of us tend to get stuck in courses of action once started, especially in the face of bad news. Escalation of commitment doesn’t just occur in high-stakes situations. It also happens when the stakes are low, demonstrating the pervasiveness of the error. ([Location 1481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1481)) ### CHAPTER 5 Sunk Cost and the Fear of Waste > Richard Thaler, in 1980, was the first to point to the sunk cost effect as a general phenomenon, describing it as a systematic cognitive error in which people take into account money, time, effort, or any other resources they have previously sunk into an endeavor when making decisions about whether to continue and spend more. ([Location 1549](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1549)) > Put simply, the sunk cost effect causes people to stick in situations that they ought to be quitting. ([Location 1556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1556)) > How Big Does the Katamari Grow? ([Location 1684](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1684)) > When we start something, whether it’s putting money into the pot in a hand of poker, or starting a relationship or a job, or buying a stock, we open up a mental account. When we exit that thing, whether it’s folding a hand, or leaving a relationship or job, or selling the stock, we close that mental account. It turns out that we just don’t like to close mental accounts in the losses. ([Location 1730](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1730)) > The instruction to treat it as a new decision did practically nothing to reduce escalation of commitment. Just knowing about the sunk cost effect doesn’t help. The Jedi mind trick doesn’t help. That’s a lot of bad news about sunk cost. ([Location 1799](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1799)) > Chapter 5 Summary The sunk cost effect is a cognitive illusion where people take into account resources they have previously sunk into an endeavor when making decisions about whether to continue and spend more. The sunk cost effect causes people to stick in situations that they ought to be quitting. When deciding whether to stick or quit, we are worried that if we walk away, we will have wasted the resources we have spent in the trying. You might be experiencing the sunk cost fallacy if you hear yourself thinking “If I don’t make this work I will have wasted years of my life!” or “We can’t fire her now, she’s been here for decades!” Sunk costs snowball, like a katamari. The resources you have already spent make it less likely you will quit, which makes it more likely you will accumulate additional sunk costs, which makes it again less likely you will quit, and so on. The growing debris of your prior commitment makes it increasingly harder to walk away. We don’t like to close mental accounts in the losses. Knowing about the sunk cost effect doesn’t keep you from falling prey to it. You can’t trick yourself into not taking sunk costs into account by trying to view the situation as a new choice. Asking whether or not you would continue if the decision were a fresh one doesn’t mitigate the sunk cost effect the way you might intuitively think it would. ([Location 1803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1803)) ### CHAPTER 6 Monkeys and Pedestals > The bottleneck, the hard thing, is training a monkey to juggle flaming torches. The point of this mental model is to remind you that there is no point building the pedestal if you can’t train the monkey. In other words, you ought to tackle the hardest part of the problem first. “Monkeys and pedestals” has become part of the language of the organization. When X-ers give project presentations, you’ll see #MONKEYFIRST and icons of monkeys. That’s their way of identifying the hard thing they have to do for the project to be worth pursuing. The lesson here is, when you’re starting your business, the first thing you tackle shouldn’t be designing the perfect business card or investing in the most beautiful logo or coming up with the coolest name. ([Location 1868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1868)) > If we can identify in advance what the signals are that we should pay attention to and make a plan for how we will react to them, we can increase the chances that we’ll cut our losses when we ought to. ([Location 1931](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1931)) > That list offers you a set of kill criteria, literally criteria for killing a project or changing your mind or cutting your losses. It’s one of the best tools for helping you figure out when to quit closer to on time. Kill criteria could consist of information you learn that tells you the monkey isn’t trainable or that you’re not sufficiently likely to reach your goal, or signs that luck has gone against you. ([Location 1936](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1936)) > another strategy that did work was having one group set benchmarks in the form of minimum targets for sales and profits in advance of the first decision. Those participants, after getting the data about the poor performance, allocated just $3.9 million to the same product they chose earlier. Their allocation now looked the same as those of participants who were actually fresh to the decision. And it was a big reduction compared with others who made both allocations but hadn’t set benchmarks. This is in line with lots of subsequent work that’s been done on all sorts of precommitment contracts. Whether it comes to following through with diet plans or work plans or study plans, these types of precommitment contracts get people to act more rationally. Essentially, kill criteria create a precommitment contract to quit. ([Location 1954](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1954)) > When you start dating someone, think ahead. What could be happening that would make you think that it was time to end the relationship? ([Location 1962](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1962)) > Imagine you were pursuing a lead that came through an RFP (request for proposal) or RFI (request for information). It’s six months from now, and you have lost the deal. Looking back, you realize there were early signals that the deal was not going to close. What were they? In general, this idea of casting yourself into the future, imagining a failure, and then looking back to try to figure out why is called a premortem. Using a premortem is a great tool to help develop high-quality kill criteria. ([Location 1988](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=1988)) > The best quitting criteria combine two things: a state and a date. A state is just what it sounds like, an objective, measurable condition you or your project is in, a benchmark that you have hit or missed. A date is the when. Kill criteria, generally, include both states and dates, in the form of “If I am (or am not) in a particular state at a particular date or at a particular time, then I have to quit.” Or “If I haven’t done X by Y (time), I’ll quit.” Or “If I haven’t achieved X by the time I’ve spent Y (amount in money, effort, time, or other resources), I should quit.” ([Location 2031](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2031)) > Chapter 6 Summary Monkeys and pedestals is a mental model that helps you quit sooner. Pedestals are the part of the problem you know you can already solve, like designing the perfect business card or logo. The hardest thing is training the monkey. When faced with a complex, ambitious goal, (a) identify the hard thing first; (b) try to solve for that as quickly as possible; and (c) beware of false progress. Building pedestals creates the illusion that you are making progress toward your goal, but doing the easy stuff is a waste of time if the hard stuff is actually impossible. Tackling the monkey first gets you to no faster, limiting the time, effort, and money you sink into a project, making it easier to walk away. When we butt up against a hard problem we can’t solve, we have a tendency to turn to pedestal-building rather than choosing to quit. Advance planning and precommitment contracts increase the chances you will quit sooner. When you enter into a course of action, create a set of kill criteria. This is a list of signals you might see in the future that would tell you it’s time to quit. Kill criteria will help inoculate you against bad decision-making when you’re “in it” by limiting the number of decisions you’ll have to make once you’re already in the gains or in the losses. In organizations, kill criteria allow people a different way to get rewarded beyond dogged and blind pursuit of a project until the bitter end. A common, simple way to develop kill criteria is with “states and dates:” “If by (date), I have/haven’t (reached a particular state), I’ll quit.” ([Location 2108](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2108)) ### CHAPTER 7 You Own What You’ve Bought and What You’ve Thought: Endowment and Status Quo Bias > When we own something, we value it more highly than an identical item that we do not own. Richard Thaler was the first to name this cognitive illusion, calling it the endowment effect. In fact, he introduced the endowment effect in that same 1980 paper where he coined the term “sunk cost.” He described the endowment effect as “the fact that people often demand more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.” ([Location 2271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2271)) > The endowment effect adds more mass to the katamari, beyond what is already added by the sunk cost effect. As you start on a course of action and as you make subsequent decisions to continue on that course of action, not only are you accumulating more sunk costs, but you’re becoming more endowed to your ideas, to the belief that you’re on the right course. As you build things, whether they’re train tracks, or bookshelves, or relationships, or essays that you’ve written for classes, the endowment effect gaffs the scale even more, further escalating our commitment to failing causes. ([Location 2357](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2357)) > The endowment and sunk cost effects live together in a way that amplifies escalation of commitment. Status quo bias adds to the mix of cognitive forces gaffing the scale. Simply put, the status quo is the path you’re already on or the way you’ve always done things. The bias is that we have a preference to stick with those decisions, methods, and paths that we’ve already set upon, and a resistance to veering from them into something new or different. ([Location 2418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2418)) > Another of the factors that cause us to hew to the status quo is an asymmetry in the way we experience loss aversion. We are much more bothered by the downside potential of changing course than we are by the downside potential of staying on the path we’re already on. ([Location 2431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2431)) > Wrapped within all these forces interfering with quitting decisions is that we do not think of sticking with the status quo as an active decision in the same way that we view switching as one. We are much more concerned with errors of commission than errors of omission (failures to act). We’re more wary of “causing” a bad outcome by acting than “letting it happen” through inaction. This phenomenon is known as omission-commission bias. ([Location 2444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2444)) > Chapter 7 Summary The endowment effect is a cognitive bias where we value something we own more than we would if we didn’t own it. We can be endowed to objects but also to our own ideas and beliefs. Endowment is an obstacle to quitting because when we irrationally value things we own, we miscalculate their expected value. We might think the company we started or the project we devised or the belief we have is worth more than it actually is. We prefer to stick with the status quo. We are more tolerant of bad outcomes that come from sticking with what we are already doing than bad outcomes that come from switching to something new. This phenomenon is part of omission-commission bias. When you say, “I’m just not ready to decide yet,” what you are really saying is, “For now, I am choosing the status quo.” Even in highly data-rich environments like professional sports, sunk cost, endowment, and status quo bias distort decision-making. ([Location 2514](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2514)) ### CHAPTER 8 The Hardest Thing to Quit Is Who You Are: Identity and Dissonance > When your identity is what you do, then what you do becomes hard to abandon, because it means quitting who you are. ([Location 2680](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2680)) > Like the other forces we’ve explored, cognitive dissonance adds debris to the katamari, making it harder to quit. Every time you rationalize away new information in order to cling to a belief, that belief becomes more tightly woven into the fabric of your identity. The act of rejecting the facts becomes circular. Now the next time you discover conflicting information or your actions don’t align with your beliefs, you’re going to be even more motivated to stick to those beliefs. ([Location 2707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2707)) > You might think that would move your decisions to a more accurate place, but the opposite is true. Thinking about how you will be judged if you quit makes you move further from that benchmark of rationality. You end up quitting less and committing more. ([Location 2751](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2751)) > The lesson in all this is that we need to be careful about tying our identity to any single thing that we believe. And we need to be particularly cautious when a belief is outside the mainstream and public because it is so much harder to let go of those beliefs, facts be damned. ([Location 2784](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2784)) > Be picky about what you stick to. Persevere in the things that matter, that bring you happiness, and that move you toward your goals. Quit everything else, to free up those resources so you can pursue your goals and stop sticking to things that slow you down. ([Location 2829](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2829)) > Chapter 8 Summary When it comes to quitting, the most painful thing to quit is who you are. Our ideas, beliefs, and actions are part of our identity. When new information conflicts with a belief, we experience cognitive dissonance. To resolve the conflict, we can either change the belief or rationalize away the new information. Too often, we choose the latter. Dissonance can also result from new information coming into conflict with our past actions. We have a desire to maintain internal consistency, where our past beliefs and actions line up with our present beliefs and actions. We also want others to view us as consistent. We worry that if others see inconsistency between our present and past decisions, beliefs, or actions, they will judge us as being wrong, irrational, capricious, and prone to mistakes. When we know or believe our decisions are being evaluated by others, our intuition is that we will be more rational, but the opposite is true. External validity increases escalation of commitment. The more extreme a position is, the more cognitive gymnastics we’ll do to defend it. The facts are more likely to persuade you away from the consensus opinion than a fringe view. Fears about how others will view us if we quit are usually overblown. ([Location 2836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2836)) ### CHAPTER 9 Find Someone Who Loves You but Doesn’t Care about Hurt Feelings > When I asked Daniel Kahneman what he thinks the secret is to being a good quitter, he told me, “What everybody needs is the friend who really loves them but does not care much about hurt feelings in the moment.” When you are in it, facing down the decision about whether to walk away or stay the course, that is when your decision-making is the most vulnerable to the host of cognitive biases that make it hard for you to quit. Kahneman’s insight is that an outside observer, like a friend or a loved one, is much more likely to have a rational view on your situation, because they are not in it with you. The problem is that when you are the outside observer and you can see that somebody is on a losing path, you are likely to think that withholding the hard truth is the nice thing to do, because you know it will hurt them to hear it. But in sparing their feelings, in trying to be nice, you’re denying them the opportunity to see what you see. ([Location 2974](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2974)) > When you find that friend, ask them to be your quitting coach, to be that person who helps you figure out when to abandon course. ([Location 2985](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=2985)) > For your relationship with your quitting coach to work, you have to give them permission to act in that role. That includes explicitly committing to being open to hearing the hard truths that they may have to tell you. ([Location 3057](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3057)) > When people ask for advice, don’t confuse that with being given permission. Instead, when someone comes to you, it’s better to use Ron Conway’s approach, which can be summarized in these four steps. STEP 1 | Let them know that you think they should consider quitting. STEP 2 | When they push back, retreat and agree with them that they can turn the situation around. STEP 3 | Set very clear definitions around what success is going to look like in the near future and memorialize them down as kill criteria. STEP 4 | Agree to revisit the conversation and, if the benchmarks for success haven’t been met, you’ll have a serious discussion about quitting. ([Location 3069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3069)) > Chapter 9 Summary Optimism makes you less likely to walk away while not actually increasing your chances of success. That means that being overly optimistic will make you stick to things longer that aren’t worthwhile. Better to be well calibrated. Life’s too short to spend your time on opportunities that are no longer worthwhile. When someone is on the outside looking in, they can usually see your situation more rationally than you can. The best quitting coach is a person who loves you enough to look out for your long-term well-being. They are willing to tell you the hard truth even if it means risking hurt feelings in the short term. Decisions about when to quit improve when the people who make the decisions to start things are different from the people who make the decisions to stop those things. Getting the most out of a quitting coach requires permission to speak the truth. ([Location 3097](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3097)) ### CHAPTER 10 Lessons from Forced Quitting > Sometimes, you make the choice to quit and sometimes the world makes that choice for you. ([Location 3192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3192)) > One of the goals for all of us should be to, as much as possible, maximize the diversification of interests, skills, and opportunities in each of our portfolios. ([Location 3428](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3428)) > Diversification doesn’t just afford you a softer landing if you’re forced to quit. It also helps you to make more rational decisions about walking away from something that’s no longer worth pursuing. That’s because it’s easier to walk away when you know what you’re walking toward. Having other options available takes away some of the uncertainty about what comes next that can prevent you from quitting. ([Location 3443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3443)) > Chapter 10 Summary Being forced to quit forces you to start exploring new options and opportunities. But you should start exploring before you’re forced to. Even after you have found a path that you want to stick to, keep doing some exploration. Things change, and whatever you are doing now may not be the best path for you to pursue in the future. Having more options gives you something to switch to when the time is right. Exploration helps you to diversify your portfolio of skills, interests, and opportunities. A diversified portfolio helps to protect you against uncertainty. Backup plans are good to have especially because some backup plans can turn out to be better than what we’re already pursuing. ([Location 3503](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3503)) ### CHAPTER 11 The Myopia of Goals > Once you start the race, success is only measured against crossing the finish line. And even a broken leg won’t make us quit when facing the choice between falling short or continuing on in pain. ([Location 3548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3548)) > But just because there are a lot of benefits to setting goals doesn’t mean that there isn’t a downside to them as well. As you might already suspect, clearly defined finish lines should come with a warning: Danger, you may experience escalation of commitment. ([Location 3555](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3555)) > Exacerbating the pass-fail problem is that once we establish a goal, we rarely revisit it. Goals tend to be set-it-and-forget-it. The finish line doesn’t move. ([Location 3623](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3623)) > Either explicitly or implicitly, the goal you set is a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’ll bear to get them. ([Location 3645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3645)) > To achieve the things we want to achieve, we have to be responsive to the way the world is changing around us and the way that we ourselves are changing. That would mean unfixing our goals, but we don’t naturally do that. In combination, the pass-fail and fixed nature of goals causes us to just keep on toward the finish line, even when the finish line is no longer what we should be running toward. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. ([Location 3652](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3652)) > To make these unlesses most effective, we need to create strong precommitment contracts that set out how we’re going to follow through on those kill criteria. Then, to make sure that we’re picking the unlesses that are going to get us to the fastest answer about whether the thing we’re doing is worth pursuing, we need to do the work of identifying monkeys and pedestals. Doing this work with a quitting coach who can hold you accountable to those unlesses is even better. These unlesses, of course, require advance planning. You’re trying to anticipate as many scenarios that might unfold as possible. But you can’t anticipate every circumstance under which you might stick and every circumstance under which you might quit. That means you have to keep checking back in on the cost-benefit analysis that the goal is a proxy for. You should reevaluate, on a regular cadence, whether the values that you’re trying to privilege are still being privileged and whether the values that you’re deprivileging, the costs that you’re bearing, are still worth it. Those check-ins also offer an opportunity to reevaluate old kill criteria and set new ones. ([Location 3674](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3674)) > We need to redefine what “failed” and “wasted” mean. When we worry that quitting means we’ve failed, what exactly are we failing at? If you quit something that’s no longer worth pursuing, that’s not a failure. That’s a success. The way we naturally think about failure is to have stopped something short of the goal, as in failing to make it to the finish line. But if you’re continuing to pursue something that’s no longer worth pursuing, isn’t that a failure? How do we start to redefine that and think about failure as failing to follow a good decision process? Success means following a good decision process, not just crossing a finish line, especially if it is the wrong one to cross. That means appropriately following kill criteria, listening to our quitting coaches, and recognizing that the progress we’ve made along the way counts for a lot. ([Location 3775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3775)) > Contrary to popular belief, winners quit a lot. That’s how they win. ([Location 3795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3795)) > Chapter 11 Summary Goals can make it possible to achieve worthwhile things, but goals can also increase the chances that we will escalate commitment when we should quit. Goals are pass-fail in nature. You either reach the finish line or you don’t, and progress along the way matters very little. Don’t just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don’t reach the goal. Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’re willing to bear. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one “unless” and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal. In general, when we quit, we fear two things: that we’ve failed and that we’ve wasted our time, effort, or money. Waste is a forward-looking problem, not a backward-looking one. ([Location 3797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09PTLY4BL&location=3797))