Book Takeaways: Quit by Annie Duke
July 31, 2024 • Books • Takeaways ⌇ Connect ↗
I chose to read this book because I found myself in a dilemma. I found myself at a life intersection where I was weighing the Pros & Cons of quitting or sticking to my job in 2024. Every angle I tried to adopt only increased my willingness to stick, but I felt there were more rational reasons to consider doing the unconventional. And so this book found me at the right time, as I visited a book store in Vienna for a completely different reason. I ended up leaving with 3 new books, Quit being one of them, but I digress… As I began reading shortly after, I knew I had to write these takeaways due to the depth of research and supporting arguments that underpin the exact opposite to society’s status quo. Annie Duke makes a case for winner’s quit all the time and will change your mind to believe quitters never win is a fallacy. Having read each page (probably) twice, I feel this is one of the most comprehensive summary to sway anyone to think of quitting as a tool to find a better path forward, one more aligned with your true self. And Quit by Annie Duke will act as the toolbox, you will want to revisit to satisfy your mental distress in moments where you find yourself on edge.
Let’s dive into my favorite ideas from Quit by Annie Duke.
Key ideas & takeaways
[00] Why is quitting so difficult? 1. We don’t know what would have happened & 2. We use it as an avoidance tool, rather than a feedback mechanism to learn from. Really, we should track our quitting & sticking decisions to get better over time. Use the FOUNDERS Decision Tracker (Notion Template) and think about being/getting a quitting coach as a sounding board to measure against your starting point or ‘you yesterday’ and record these milestones.
[00.5] How to do quit coaching → “We all need someone who loves us but who also understands that it’s better for our long-term happiness to speak out loud the unpleasant truth when the path we are on is one we need to abandon”. This method by Ron Conway is a good approach: STEP1 Let them know chat you think they should consider quitting, STEP2 When they push back, retreat and agree with them that they can turn the situation around, STEP3 Set very clear definitions around what success is going to look like in the near future and memorialise them down as kill criteria, STEP4 Agree to revisit the conversation and, if the benchmarks for success haven’t been met, you’ll have a serious discussion about quitting.
[01] Success ≠ sticking to every thing you start. Success = sticking to the right things at the right time. This means winners quit all the time because by choosing to stick with something you inevitably quit something else. Or you die trying to do everything at once, which ends up in nothing at all. Sticking to hard things needs to be worthwhile.
[02] Life is not linear. Life is lateral. Good decisions acknowledge that the context you know today will evolve with new information, which is nothing other than critical feedback to use for reflection to either stick or quit. So get comfortable to act with incomplete information.
[03] Life has no finish line: it’s not a pass-fail assignment, but progress along the way does not matter in a finite mindset. Looking at life this way makes you fearful of being able to complete the goal, resulting in never getting started. Don’t fear falling too short, rather get started and find joy in the compounding progress of your work. Life yo will not come from setting all or nothing goals, but from having a north start that continuously evaluates as ‘worthy to pursue’, that’s the only way to be able to respond to the way the world is changing. “Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world”, so add an unless to each goal you set as a quick way to apply kill criteria to less specific tasks.
[04] Why is quitting hard? Because the flip side (sticking) is the only probabilistic way to find out how things will turn out for sure. Quitting leaves you wondering “what if?”. It takes bravery to quit and accept the unknown, not cowardice.
[05] Repeat after me: “quitting on time will usually feel too early”. Because the losses we accrue after it feels early, only accumulate. Only to result in a delay in changing course. A good rule of thumb: if you feel like it’s a close call, you should probably quit.
[06] Practice thinking in terms of Expected Value (EV) and ask yourself: “where will my expected value be the most positive/highest?” It helps to compare future options and figure out where you will most likely receive positive, balanced or negative results in life. In general: deciding to pick a path with a more positive expected value will get you where you want to be faster. Expected Value can be anything like happiness or fulfilment… Never stop exploring, as another path might suit you much better than the current thing. Because the world changes as we do too: tastes, preferences, values and circumstances are always evolving, so what you want now, might not be the same as what you wanted when you decided to be on this path. “Don’t wait to be forced to explore alternatives — A diversified portfolio helps to protect you against uncertainty”.
[07] Prospect Theory / Loss Aversion = the emotional impact of loss is 2x more impactful than the equivalent gain. How does this affect our psyche? When we are winning, we are less likely to gamble (to avoid giving back the gains) and therefore quit while we’re ahead (to avoid realising the loss). When we are losing, we are more likely to gamble, to turn the odds in our favour, by recruiting luck. All to avoid a painful loss… do the opposite: quit early when you’re losing & keep sticking when you’re winning. Don’t just quit while you’re ahead to save face — that’s weak. But also don’t over-persist. Find your balance and apply EV-thinking.
[08] What psychological facts stop us from quitting on time? (It usually feels too early, but that moment often means you’re already in the losses)
- Sure-loss aversion → we avoid stopping something we have started as that would mean materialising the losses incurred.
- Escalation commitment → we are more likely and even willing to double down on losing causes.
- Sunk-cost fallacy → is a cognitive error, where money, time, effort and other resources are considered in decisions to stick to losing causes (“we don’t want to lose what we’ve already spent”, but this is wrong because we only accumulate more sunk costs, if we stick anyways, which only supports persevering).
- Endowment effect → we value things or ideas we own more, than if they weren’t ours.
- Status quo bias → we prefer to stick with the way things are done as accepted by society (Don’t say “I am not ready to decide yet”, say “For now, I am choosing the status quo”, to leave room for possibilities).
- Omission-commission bias → we are more tolerant of bad outcomes that come from sticking, than bad outcomes that come from switching to something new.
- Dissonance theory → new information causes conflict within our beliefs, resulting in rationalising the validity of what we already believe and forming extreme opinions that become more and more integral to our identity.
- External validity → by caring about what others think, we try to be rational so that we are seen as consistent, which almost always leads to sticking, not quitting.
[09] Monkey & Pedestals mental model → training a monkey juggle flaming torches is always more difficult than building the pedestal itself. Know the hard side of what you are trying to do and solve for that first, rather than building the easy side, only for it to break. False progress is over indexing on the easy side. Momentum is solving for the hard thing, which will get you to no faster, or give you real purpose to press on.
[10] How can I quit better? Create kill criteria (a pre-commitment contract to quit / premortem) → what information could you learn in the process of pursuing your goal that would justify quitting — make it a measurable condition with a state & date (e.g. “If I haven’t achieved X by Y, then I’ll quit”).
[11] As humans, we don’t like to close mental accounts in the losses. But not everything in life can be a winner. So we need to teach ourselves that quitting to accrue a loss is ok, as long as we persevere towards more positive expected value things. To quit well, decide without delay.
[12] Success = following a good decision process. Failure = sticking to something that is no longer worth pursuing. Failure = not following a good decision process. Reframe failure as the inability to see the bigger picture and focus on the journey, which will thrive once you are aware of 1. Psychological obstacles holding you back from quitting, 2. Following through with your kill criteria & 3. Savouring each point of progress that adds a layer to your compounding momentum. Remember: there is no finish line.
[13] When we quit, we fear two things: 1. Acknowledging that we have failed & 2. Accepting that we have wasted time, effort or money.
[14] Waste (time, resources, energy etc.:.) is not a problem in retrospect, but rather a forward-looking one. If you feel like you’ve “wasted time”, think about the time you might waste, should you decide to stick — that is the real waste.
[15] What’s the best time to quit? When you notice you are viewing the waste of time as much greater in the future than in the past… only then will quitting leave room for more possibilities to shape up in your life.
Favorite quote
“The important thing is to be better, not perfect After all, we’re only human and we’re operating under conditions of uncertainty. It’s hard to time quitting decisions perfectly.” — Annie Duke
“The sooner you figure out that you should walk away, the sooner you can switch to something better. And the sooner that happens, the more resources you’re saving, which you can then devote to more fruitful endeavours.” — Annie Duke
“We are all trying to defend ourselves against how we imagine other people are going to judge us. We get it in our heads that if we don’t stick to our original choice, that will reflect negatively on us. The irony is that this desire to be viewed as rational causes us to become less rational in the decisions we make … 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.” — Annie Duke
“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.” — Annie Duke
“The beauty of having the option to quit is that it makes it easier for us to make decisions under uncertainty. Whenever we make a decision, whether its starting a race, or starting up a mountain, or starting a business, or starting a relationship, were making that decision with incomplete information in a world that’s stochastic. We’re under the influence of luck. The world can change. We can change.” — Annie Duke
“If leaders act like success is just whether you hit the target or goal or deadline, then the people they’re leading are going to learn pretty quickly that they need to get across the finish line at all costs. They won’t speak up if they think the goal isn’t worth pursuing any longer. They’re going to be unwilling to quit even when the situation warrants it, because leadership will evaluate that as a failure.” — Annie Duke
“Ultimately, where you’re going-where we’re all going—is along whatever route will have the greatest expected value throughout our lives. That path is going to involve a lot of quitting. Contrary to popular belief, winners quit a lot. That’s how they win.” — Annie Duke
Final thoughts
If you are into reading or have a goal for 2024 as I do, let’s connect on Literal. You can follow me via @julianpaul — I track my current read and progress daily.
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Until next time.
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