Book Review: Quit—The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke

Bestselling author and former professional poker player, Annie Duke outrivals in the decision-making space. In her latest book, Quit, she challenges the norm with breakthrough ideas about the role quitting plays in achieving long-term success—to pick the right thing to stick to and quit the rest. In the spirit of her former profession, she presents a convincing argument that quitting is a competitive advantage as in “knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”

Why are we reading this book?

Annie Duke presents a compelling case for why breaking through the stigma around whether or not to quit is critical to conversations about success. Her spot-on analysis derived from educational examples and behavioral science busts through the barriers around this much-maligned topic. She does it with finesse and the finest of storytelling with the intent to create better understanding of those forces that work against making a good choice between sticking it out or walking away.

Backstory:

People from all walks of life have demonstrated the grit to not quit—Mohammed Ali punched it out despite his declining health, marathon runners have continued to run with a broken bone, and Mt. Everest hikers have defied guidelines to reach the summit. Duke recognized a pattern with these stories and many others. She had to find out why quitting is a negative and grit is a positive. Was she a quitter for retiring from professional poker with $4 million in winnings?

Challenge:

The challenge of deciding whether or not to quit a course of action pervades most every aspect of life—whether or not to leave a job, go to grad school, stay in a relationship or sell a stock that’s losing value are just a few examples. The more effort, time or money that goes into an endeavor, the more challenging it is to quit. Without a roadmap to guide the decision-making process, success is at best a 50-50 proposition. More often than not, the odds aren’t even that good.

Solution:

To avoid becoming entrapped, Duke teaches the importance of setting benchmarks depending on the circumstances. For example, if a Ph.D. wants to secure tenure, determine the logical timeline to achieve that goal and consider quitting if that doesn’t happen. Referred to as “kill criteria,” Duke applied it to poker setting time and loss limits and leaving if the player quality changed unfavorably. Determining pre-established guidelines provides a built-in safety net to make new choices if necessary.

Summary:

Acquiring good quitting skills is essential. Quitting is the tool that allows you to make a different decision with new information. Quitting is what enables companies to maximize speed, experimentation and effectiveness in highly uncertain environments. Grit is what gets you going and the ability to quit tells you when it’s time to stop. It’s just getting past those tried and supposedly true aphorisms like “winners never quit, and quitters never win.” Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Quit will have you believing that quitting is absolutely a good thing.