8
Is It Time to Give Up?

It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

—HENRY WARD BEECHER

My mom looked at me with love and a touch of warning and said, “Douglas, this is your last chance. Are you absolutely sure that you want to join the swim team this year?”

I looked up at her with the carefree attitude of a 9-year-old boy and replied, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” my mom said as she held a check while looking for any sign of hesitation. “Once I hand this check over, you’re committed for the season.”

This is how it went every October when my mom would sign me up for the winter season of AAU swimming. Every December, after the team had been practicing for about a month, I would tell my mom that I didn’t like swimming anymore. I wanted to quit. My mom would tell me that I had committed to the team, she had paid money, and that quitting wasn’t an option right now. I had to finish the season.

If I were to put myself in my parents’ shoes, I probably would have handled this the same exact way. If you make a commitment to something that is only a couple of months long and you have to endure some hardship, you’re sticking with it. There are exceptions, though, and quitting is a resilience tool that is available to all of us.

How We View Quitting

Our society does not look kindly on quitting. There are conscious and unconscious cues to warn us of the perils. Consider the following quotes and how powerful they are:

Winners never quit and quitters never win.
—Anonymous

Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.
—Vince Lombardi

Failure is not an option.
—Gene Krantz

I’m pretty sure that several of my little league coaches shared the first quote with our teams. The dads meant well and tried to help us understand the value of perseverance and hard work. They wanted us to keep playing hard even when we were losing by 20 points with a minute to go.

There certainly is value in this concept but it’s simply not accurate. All of the people interviewed for this book easily fit into the category of “winner.” Each of them shared a story or two of how quitting one thing led to greater success. At the very minimum, quitting can be a learning experience.

The second quote was originally put forth by UCLA Bruins football coach Red Sanders. He said it in hopes of motivating a win on the gridiron. It was later brought to fame by Vince Lombardi who actually said, “Winning isn’t everything. The will to win is the only thing.” Lombardi was actually a little embarrassed about it. The man who went on to win five National Football League championships and have the Super Bowl trophy named after him was driven to win. But he valued the relationships, the hard work, and the process, as well.

Think about our economy. In one sense, it is only about winning the consumer’s dollar. Wall Street is focused on quarterly results. Apple or Google could have one quarter in which they miss inflated expectations by one-tenth of a percentage and it becomes headline news… which sends their stock prices into a free fall. Eventually, this translates to employee evaluations based on accomplishments that are derived from a corporate scorecard. Effort is considered but results are what really count.

Finally, Gene Krantz uttered the famous words in the third quote during the Apollo 13 mission. When the NASA mission control team was at a breaking point and President Nixon wanted a statement about the mission, Krantz was sending a signal to his team and the astronauts who were thousands of miles away that absolutely nothing mattered but getting those three men home. Sleep, food, and families were less important than their new mission goal.

Krantz, the astronauts, and all those involved in returning the astronauts home are heroes and should be lauded for their incredible efforts. And in situations that are confronted by emergency room doctors, police officers, and firemen, saving a life is the only option. Krantz, like Lombardi and other coaches, inspired people to act heroically. As we will see, few of the situations we encounter are life and death. And the weight that we feel based on societal norms can feel overwhelming. Sometimes, quitting is the most resilient thing you can do.

Autonomy

Edward Deci is a psychology professor and researcher at the University of Rochester in New York State. He has focused on human motivation for the last four decades and his theory can be boiled down to three simple areas that he labels as “basic needs.”¹ The first basic need of human beings is the “quest for autonomy.” We desire the ability to choose the work we do, how we do it, when we do it, and any other elements that accompany a given task. Things that can get in the way of autonomy are deadlines, managers telling us exactly how to run a project, and parents who offer no choice to children, for instance.

The second basic need is “competence.” People desire to reach a level of expertise in a given area. We strive for mastery, that is, to get better and better at activities that are important to us. Getting better and better at something provides a great deal of satisfaction. Deci argues that this is one example of how intrinsic motivation is what really drives performance. And once we offer extrinsic rewards (or punishments), we can almost never go back. In multiple studies, his team found that introducing rewards led to lower motivation. For instance, imagine that you enjoy painting but are not compensated for your efforts. Then, one day, someone says he will pay $500 for your latest piece of art, and all of a sudden it becomes incredibly difficult to disconnect something that was inherently pleasant from the reward. The task itself becomes less interesting and motivating.

Finally, Deci’s third need is what he refers to as “relatedness.” In short, human beings want to be loved and they want to love others. We desire to belong to a group. We find support and meaning when we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Being affiliated can also drive meaning and purpose.

Deci’s work also suggests that autonomy trumps competency and relatedness. It is not that the latter are unimportant; it is that our desire for autonomy is that much stronger. We enter this world as curious beings attempting to direct the movie of our own lives. Deci writes, “Autonomy fuels growth and health because it allows people to experience themselves as themselves as the initiators or their own actions.”²

So how does this relate to quitting? Deciding to discontinue a project, a job, or a relationship is a very personal decision. We are the lead actors in our lives and having someone else direct us takes away from the pleasure, the meaning, and the authenticity with which we live. Quitting, in some cases, reiterates our power to be the ultimate force in our lives.

Jennifer, our corporate training professional we met in earlier chapters, was married to an alcoholic. She did her best to help him, but the marriage ended in divorce and she took full custody of her two handicapped children. Several years later, she fell in love with another man. Unfortunately, he did not treat her very well. One day, the couple fell into another argument and Jennifer said to him, “You know, I’m really tired of your making me feel so bad.”

His response may have been the one wise thing to ever come out of his mouth: “How can I make you feel anything? You choose how you feel! You’re one of the strongest people I know. You’re caring for two kids with very special needs and you put up with an abusive alcoholic for years, but that never seemed to get you down.”

At first Jennifer thought her boyfriend wasn’t taking responsibility for his actions. Upon further reflection, however, she realized he was right. She had the power to choose her reaction and what to do with her life. Soon after this conversation, Jennifer ended the relationship and struck out on her own again. Several years later, she met the man of her dreams and they have been married for more than 10 years. If Jennifer had not quit (twice!), I think it is safe to say her life would not be as rich as it is today.

We’ve all heard something like this before when we were striving toward an unattainable goal. The other person (a coach, a parent, a teacher) thought that their belief in you would create that motivation so you could achieve the impossible. And of course there are stories of great teachers, motivating coaches, and self-sacrificing parents who believed in students, players, and kids so much that great accomplishments followed. But deep down we knew we couldn’t make it. It just wasn’t possible.

The fact is we all have limits. Some goals are not achievable and not worth pursuing. Carsten Wrosch of Concordia University and a team of researchers examined the effects of chasing the impossible. How does it affect people when they continue to put effort into goals that cannot be achieved? It turns out that people in these cases have a lot more stress in their lives. They experience more negativity overall and they have higher levels of depressive symptoms. As for people who quit, Wrosch says that they “…have lower cortisol levels, and they have lower levels of systemic inflammation, which is a marker of immune functioning. And they develop fewer physical problems over time.”³ Quitting, it seems, can be good for your health.

Quitting is also good for reaching your goals…that is, your other goals. When you quit something that is impossible to realize or is making your life miserable, you free up resources for other goals that may be important to you. Leaving a job can give you the time and energy to write your book. Leaving a relationship that is doomed allows you to be alone and find yourself again. When the decision is ours, we own our lives.

Marilyn Frazier never found it easy to quit anything. She said, “Commitment and follow-through is very important to me. Giving up is not a part of who I am, therefore it was very difficult to give up on my marriage, even though it was not working. I learned that I could not accept nor change my husband. I could only control and change me and since I could not accept him, I had to end the marriage. I also learned that giving up and knowing when to walk away or quit are different.” Marilyn was not only able to frame the decision properly, she owned it.

How to Fail Quickly (and Learn From It!)

What if we could take a magic pill that would help us evaluate our lives more objectively so that quitting would be easier to do under the “right” circumstances? Unfortunately, that pill does not exist, so we are better off thinking about failure in a completely different way.

To start, an entire portion of our economy has embraced the notion of failure as absolutely essential to its success. In fact, many of the business leaders in this area live by the motto of “fail quickly.” It used to be that starting a business was an incredibly risky, expensive project. You had to build or rent a physical space. Within that space, you had to buy or lease lots of equipment. And, of course, it was usually necessary to hire a number of people.

Today, that model has flipped. You can start a business and run it out of your home without spending your life savings. Thanks to the technological advancements of the last 20 years, it’s easier than ever. Still, to take your business to the next level usually requires additional capital. Venture capitalists and angel investors are much less likely to finance start-ups with tens of millions of dollars without proof that the business will have some success. Start-ups now plan to be “lean” for several years with a minimal number of employees, a couple of laptops, and a WordPress website. And they do little experiments with their product or service in which the goal is not necessarily profitable overnight. The goal is to learn as much as possible while spending as little as possible. Failure ceases to have a negative connotation as the team gains knowledge about their marketing, customers, and the product.

In the research of Carol Dweck, resilient people take on a growth mindset. What she has discovered throughout the last 30 years is being adopted by schools across America. In short, those with a growth mindset believe that their core abilities (intelligence, athletic ability, creativity, and so on) are developed through hard work and dedication. On the other hand, those with a fixed mindset see those same abilities as simply immutable.⁴

The ramifications for one’s resilience are important to consider. When a person with a fixed mindset fails, he sees this failure as a reflection of his abilities. It can be devastating since it signals to him and others that his limits are now on display. The person with a growth mindset is more likely to view failure like feedback from the system in which she lives. Failing a test for her starts a process of evaluation that moves her to evaluate her study habits, how she pays attention in class, and anything else that she can control to improve her grade. The fixed mindset individual labels himself as not smart enough and ceases to put forth more effort. He sees no point in this as his intelligence is fixed, according to his viewpoint.

One place in which accepting failure is critical is on the jiu-jitsu mats. When Rener Gracie talks about quitting, he says it’s a “breakthrough and a trap” in our society. “There is a culture of never quitting in America,” Rener told me, “In jiu-jitsu, when something is not working, we commit our energy to some other move that might give us a better chance of winning. That’s not necessarily quitting; it’s what I like to refer to as re-directing.”

Famous Quitters

For all intents and purposes, I had the perfect childhood: two loving parents, excellent health, two (semi-interesting) sisters, and a nice place to grow up in Mahwah, New Jersey. My parents didn’t spoil us with material goods and fancy vacations. Most of our meals were cooked by mom and hand-me-downs were a part of our wardrobes. When something didn’t work out, it was not uncommon to hear my dad say, “This too shall pass.”

It seems the quote was coined somewhere in the Middle East with the original author unknown and it can be applied to every major topic in this book. Seeing things as temporary can help us be more flexible in contemplating current difficulties. Seligman’s research on the optimistic explanatory style also calls for something temporary. Being mindful and curious allows us to be objective and stresses that we live in the now. Emotions are temporary and issues that we have in our strongest relationships can stand the test of time.

The pain of quitting and failure is also temporary. If you know in your heart that moving on from a job, a project, or a relationship is the right thing to do but you’re still afraid, that’s okay. Shedding the expectations of a society, loved ones, and even ourselves can be agonizing. But the pain is temporary. Consider some of the following success stories and how quitting actually made success possible.

• After 13 years and 638 episodes personal finance guru Suze Orman quit her own show. She said it was a gut feeling and that if you stay with something for the wrong reasons (for example, money), someone else is going to make the decision for you.

• Charles Darwin quit a promising medical career when his heart wasn’t into it. He ended up focusing on his passion of studying the world and his book On the Origin of Species changed the way we think about evolution.

• Steve Jobs quit college. He sat in on a calligraphy class that ignited his passion for beauty and form.

• Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to form Microsoft. Not only did his software fuel a generation of businesses and students, he is now one of the greatest philanthropists on the planet.

In fifth grade, my teacher started a discussion about swimming. He talked about how he was a competitive swimmer and I guess someone told him that I was pretty good, so he asked me how the season was going. In front of 20 or so classmates I said, “I’m not swimming anymore. I quit.” I don’t think there were any audible gasps but it didn’t feel good to say. I started playing basketball during the winter and it helped me make some of the best friends of my life. Almost every year, the guys from our CYO team pack up and head out for a “guys weekend” where we play golf, go fishing, and drink a beer or two. I didn’t build a Fortune 500 company like Jobs or Gates. I didn’t even play college basketball. I was really good at swimming but I’ll take those friendships over everything. Quitting swimming was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Take It Or Leave It

If you’re not sure about quitting, try some of these techniques to give you clarity and maybe even a little courage.

• Evaluate your situation and ask if the thing you would like to quit is negatively affecting other important areas of your life. How much better (or worse) will the rest of your life be if you quit?

• Are you living based on someone else’s expectations? When you consider quitting, do you immediately think about how someone else will think if you follow through with it? If so, be aware that you may be living for someone else.

• What will you save by quitting? Time? Energy? Money? Will quitting allow you to focus the resources somewhere else that will add more value to your life?

• Consider Edward Deci’s theory of motivation. Are any of them being compromised by not quitting? Do you need to re-assert your autonomy?

• Is your goal even remotely attainable? Remember that people who give up on these types of goals have less stress and anxiety in their lives.

• Run your situation by some trusted friends who are good at being objective. Don’t tell them you are thinking about quitting. Ask them for some advice on what options you have in your situation. Make sure you get three to four options from each person. Discuss quitting as one of the options after they have exhausted their creativity. Talk through from different points of view.

• Adopt the growth mindset, as per Carol Dweck’s research. Approach your life as one big opportunity to learn and improve.

• Take up a hobby where quitting is the norm. (Of course, jiu-jitsu is the first that comes to mind for me.)

• Remember that the pain of quitting is temporary. In fact, all emotions are temporary and “this too shall pass.”

• Think about how you will feel about this decision in 10 days, 10 months, and 10 years. Try to create some objectivity and a little distance from your current strong emotions.

• Make a list of all the projects, situations, and people who drain you of your resilience. Find a way to avoid these things.

• Give yourself quitting goals. If you don’t achieve success in a certain amount of time, you have given yourself permission to quit. For instance, if you have a start-up that is not generating as much revenue as you hoped, pick a revenue number that you would like to hit in six months. If you don’t hit it, don’t make excuses. Quit and move on to another opportunity.