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Speaker 1: Pushkin. What I found out is that, like there's all

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Speaker 1: these like great words for grit, including like heroism, right

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Speaker 1: like steadfast, right like perseverance, Like grit is one of

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Speaker 1: those words that's like a super super positive connotation, like sticktuitiveness,

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Speaker 1: But when you look at quit, there's hardly any words

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Speaker 1: that like are nice. And in fact, one of the

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Speaker 1: synonyms for quit is the word coward. Annie Duke knows

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Speaker 1: a lot about quitting. It's something she got really good

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Speaker 1: at when she was a professional poker player on the

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Speaker 1: world stage, and a successful one at that. We're talking

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Speaker 1: over four million dollars in prize money. And what distinguishes

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Speaker 1: great poker players from everybody else is that is mainly quitting.

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Speaker 1: They quit a lot more. So they're just very good

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Speaker 1: at cutting their losses, so they fold more hands to start.

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Speaker 1: Once they've committed money to a pot, they fold a

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Speaker 1: lot more. They change tactics or strategies like in the

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Speaker 1: middle of things, and you have to be willing to

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Speaker 1: do that. Annie's rallying cry is that we should quit

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Speaker 1: a lot more. I know it's not something we hear often,

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Speaker 1: and that's exactly why I've been so excited to have

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Speaker 1: Annie on this show to teach us something that goes

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Speaker 1: against common wisdom but can actually change our lives for

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Speaker 1: the better. Annie's the best selling author of two books,

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Speaker 1: Thinking in Bets and How to Decide. But today she's

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Speaker 1: going to give us a sneak peek of her upcoming

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Speaker 1: book on the science of Quitting. She'll show us how

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Speaker 1: to get out of her own way and learn how

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Speaker 1: to quit when we should. I'm Maya Shunker, and this

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Speaker 1: is a slight change of plans, a show about who

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Speaker 1: we are and who we become in the face of

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Speaker 1: a big change. Poker wasn't always in the cards for Annie.

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Speaker 1: She actually started out at the University of Pennsylvania studying

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Speaker 1: cognitive science, specifically how we make decisions and times of uncertainty.

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Speaker 1: I was fully intending to become a professor, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of what you do with that kind of degree.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't have a whole lot of practical application. And

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Speaker 1: I actually had all of my what are called job

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Speaker 1: talks lined up, and I've been struggling for a couple

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Speaker 1: of months with a stomach problem, and I thought I'm

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Speaker 1: just going to power through this, and it turned out

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Speaker 1: that my body said no, you can't power through it.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, the powering through it meant that I

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Speaker 1: ended up in the hospital because I sort of wasn't

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Speaker 1: taking care of this problem. And so I was in

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Speaker 1: the hospital for a couple of weeks, very sick. So

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Speaker 1: I decided to take a year off to try to recuperate.

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Speaker 1: And there was a little bit of a bind, right,

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Speaker 1: because so I've been forced to quit for a year,

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Speaker 1: and I can't I don't want to start a new

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Speaker 1: career because I'm going to go back and become an

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Speaker 1: academic and I don't know how I'm going to feel

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Speaker 1: from day today. So I need something that has like

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Speaker 1: super flexible hours. And I really desperately need money, because

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Speaker 1: it turns out when you leave graduate school for a year,

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Speaker 1: your fellowship does not leave with you. You yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I did not have any money. So my brother

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Speaker 1: actually suggested to me that I could play poker and

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Speaker 1: that that might be like the perfect thing for me

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Speaker 1: to do because obviously I could set my own hours,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I could just do it to make

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Speaker 1: some money on the side. And you know what, I

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Speaker 1: just I sat down at the table and it was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, when like in the movies, I'll have like

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Speaker 1: the heavens open up and the angels are singing. It

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Speaker 1: felt a little bit like that to me, because when

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Speaker 1: I thought about what I had been studying a graduate school,

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Speaker 1: this was that, in other words, this problem of how

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Speaker 1: do you make really great decisions under uncertainty, and poker

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Speaker 1: is like super uncertain you can't see the other players cards,

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Speaker 1: and in the short run there's a really really strong

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Speaker 1: influence of luck, which makes the decision making problem really hard,

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Speaker 1: and it's really high stakes in real time. And sort

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Speaker 1: of from the moment I sat down at the table,

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Speaker 1: it turned out I had a knack for it. So

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Speaker 1: I didn't actually end up going back to graduate school

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Speaker 1: because I loved this so much and I was experiencing

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Speaker 1: a lot of success. Within a couple of years, I'd

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Speaker 1: played at the World Series of Poker, I was making

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Speaker 1: final tables, I cashed in the main event, ended up

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Speaker 1: moving to Las Vegas, And this is what I really

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Speaker 1: concentrated on for quite a while. And then in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and two there was a new aaha, which was

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Speaker 1: that there was this amazing conversation to be had between

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Speaker 1: cognitive science and poker, a poker sort of informing the

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Speaker 1: cognitive science and the cognitive science informing the poker. So

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Speaker 1: I started consulting and speaking full time and really wanted

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Speaker 1: to write a book about these topics that I had

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Speaker 1: really been exploring. So it looks like I've changed careers

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Speaker 1: a lot, you know, from academic to poker player to

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Speaker 1: speaker and consultant to author back to academic. It seems

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Speaker 1: like a lot of zigging and zagging. But there's this

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Speaker 1: through line through everything, which is learning under uncertainty. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so quitting gets such a bad rep right, And you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that I loved learning from you

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Speaker 1: is that it's evident, even in the English language, that

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Speaker 1: we are biased against quitting. Can you share more about that? Sure?

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Speaker 1: So you have hero as a synonym, like heroism is

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Speaker 1: a synonym for grittiness, and then cowardice as a synonym

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Speaker 1: for quitting. And also, just by the way, one of

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Speaker 1: the things I point out is we have this word grittiness,

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Speaker 1: but we don't have a word quittiness, which is telling

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Speaker 1: in and of itself. Right. So obviously there are some

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Speaker 1: negative ways to describe being too gritty, like stubbornness or rigidity,

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Speaker 1: but they're few and far between. Mostly they're like amazing, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you're such a hero, You're so gritty, you're perseverance, stick, tuitiveness, pluck,

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Speaker 1: you're very plucky, right of metal. And then on the quitside,

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Speaker 1: it's just like you're a coward, right, you're capricious, like

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Speaker 1: all of these things. So I think that it's really

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Speaker 1: reflected in the English language, and then it's kind of

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Speaker 1: reflected in if you think about the way that we

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Speaker 1: process a narrative, right, we don't really see the quitters.

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Speaker 1: Like what we think about is the people the heroes

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Speaker 1: are the ones who persevere beyond the point of physical

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Speaker 1: or emotional or mental well being in order to push

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Speaker 1: past that and like cross the chasm. But the problem,

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Speaker 1: of course, is that a lot of times those people

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Speaker 1: have put themselves in danger in a situation where you

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Speaker 1: really ought to have turned around. And what I think

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Speaker 1: is really interesting, and I talk about this in the book,

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Speaker 1: is that from a narrative standpoint, we'd prefer somebody to

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Speaker 1: push past the point of sensibility and persevere and actually

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Speaker 1: perish to somebody who rightly quits early, Like, which do

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Speaker 1: you think of is the more admirable person? So one

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Speaker 1: of the examples, like I've given the book is if

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Speaker 1: you think about Everest, right when we think about somebody

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Speaker 1: like Rob Hall. So for those people who don't know,

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Speaker 1: like if you've read the book Into Thin Air or

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Speaker 1: you've seen the documentary Everest, this was in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 1: six and there was a it was a disastrous year

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Speaker 1: where a lot of people died on the mountain on Everest,

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Speaker 1: and Rob Hall, who was this amazing alpinist and expedition leader,

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Speaker 1: was one of those people who perished, and he is

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Speaker 1: very much painted as a hero of that story. He

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Speaker 1: had set turnaround times for every single day, and a

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Speaker 1: turnaround time is just if you haven't gotten to point

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Speaker 1: A by this time, you must turn around and go

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Speaker 1: back to whatever camp you're coming from. The reason being

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Speaker 1: that there's a very very dangerous part of that mountain

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Speaker 1: called the South Ridge, and you do not want to

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Speaker 1: descend the South Ridge in darkness. You'll fall like eight

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Speaker 1: thousand feet into Nepal. And Rob Hall broke the turnaround time,

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Speaker 1: so you know, and obviously it resulted in tragedy. And

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Speaker 1: what's really interesting is that there were some people who

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Speaker 1: followed the turnaround time who are also described in the book.

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Speaker 1: They're also in the documentary, and nobody remembers their names,

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Speaker 1: just so you know, it's such in Santaski and Kaciki,

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Speaker 1: these are three people who turned around at the right

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Speaker 1: time and made these great decisions, and they're totally invisible

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Speaker 1: to us because they aren't the heroes of our narratives.

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Speaker 1: And that's part of the problem, Like how do you

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Speaker 1: people like that to be the hero of your narrative? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: can you also just close the loot for listeners on

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Speaker 1: Rob Hall, So just noting that the reason he did

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Speaker 1: not follow the turnaround time he was trying to help

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Speaker 1: this guy get up who had previously not been able

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Speaker 1: to get up, And do you mind just sharing that

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Speaker 1: because I think that's such an emotionally evocative part of

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Speaker 1: the story, which is like we can't quit a second time,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah? Yeah, So Rob Paul actually got to

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Speaker 1: the top, but then he waited there for two hours

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Speaker 1: for a guy named Doug Hanson. And the question is why, right,

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Speaker 1: like why why he was already an hour passed the

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Speaker 1: turnaround time. Doug Hanson clearly was well passed the turnaround

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Speaker 1: time and was not nearly as skill the climber as

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Speaker 1: Rob Hall was, so why didn't he turn around? And

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Speaker 1: you have to rewind to the year before to understand

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Speaker 1: kind of what the forces were that caused him to

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Speaker 1: do that. So the year before was a very bad

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Speaker 1: climbing year. So Rob Hall had tried to sum up

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Speaker 1: with a group and Doug Hanson was in the group

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Speaker 1: and they came back down, so they had abandoned their

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Speaker 1: summit attempt. So now he convinces Doug Hanson to come

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Speaker 1: back the next year because he says, I'll get you

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Speaker 1: up the second time. And now we can see these

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Speaker 1: forces like this is one of the big forces that

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Speaker 1: causes us to not quit. And the phrase that I

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Speaker 1: think is such a great phrase for us to really

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Speaker 1: internalize it is called in the losses. So when we're

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Speaker 1: in the losses, we have the desire to get those back,

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Speaker 1: and we don't think about, well, what's the probability that

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Speaker 1: I would actually be able to succeed? That's number one.

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Speaker 1: We don't think about if I go for this, what

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Speaker 1: are the opportunities I'm going to give up by going

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Speaker 1: for it? Right, And that's true of anything like if

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Speaker 1: you're in an monogamous relationship, you're obviously foregoing the opportunities

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Speaker 1: to date other people. If you're in a job, you're

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Speaker 1: foregoing the other opportunities to have other full time jobs.

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Speaker 1: So this is a really actually big problem is that

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Speaker 1: we tend not to see what we're giving up in

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Speaker 1: terms of the other opportunities that might be available to

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Speaker 1: us when we're on a particular path. So if you

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Speaker 1: think about climbing Everest when we're thinking about trying to

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Speaker 1: reach the summit, it causes this like myopia where we

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Speaker 1: can't see, like other things, other opportunities that we might

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Speaker 1: have in our life, like to climb other mountains, or

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Speaker 1: to spend time with our families or whatever it else

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Speaker 1: it is we might want to do that that pursuing

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Speaker 1: that goal might actually make less likely for us to

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Speaker 1: be able to do exactly. Okay, so Annie, I'd love

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Speaker 1: to dig into some of the behavioral biases we face

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Speaker 1: that interfere with our ability to quit when we ought to.

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Speaker 1: Do you mind talking with listeners about escalation of commitment? Sure?

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Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of the game Katamari? So Katamari

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Speaker 1: is a game where it's the weirdest game. You start

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Speaker 1: with this little tiny speck of something and you roll

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Speaker 1: it around and it starts to pick stuff up, and

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Speaker 1: if it picks things up that are smaller than it is,

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Speaker 1: it will pick it up and it will grow in size.

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Speaker 1: If you try to pick something up that's bigger than

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Speaker 1: the ball that you're rolling around, it will cause the

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Speaker 1: ball to become smaller again. So the idea is you're

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Speaker 1: trying to create a ball that's big enough that you

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Speaker 1: can start picking up planets and it becomes like the

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Speaker 1: size of a sun. So you start off with this

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Speaker 1: little ball that's like picking up specs of dust and flies,

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Speaker 1: and you're rolling it around like in a room, and

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Speaker 1: you're like, then you start picking up bottles, you pick

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Speaker 1: up the cat, you know, you pick up like the couch,

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Speaker 1: and then you start picking up houses, and you can

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Speaker 1: pick up mountains, and this thing just becomes bigger and

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Speaker 1: bigger and bigger. And when I think about what happens

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Speaker 1: to us that we don't quit, I think about Cotamuri

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Speaker 1: because I think that it's such a great visual for

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Speaker 1: understanding escalation of commitment. And it basically goes this way.

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Speaker 1: You put time, resources, money, your own identity, right like,

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Speaker 1: if you think about a career or a major, it

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Speaker 1: becomes part of your identity. Who am I? I'm a doctor?

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Speaker 1: Who am I? You know? I am an English major

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Speaker 1: or I'm an engineer or whatever. Right, these things become

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Speaker 1: part of our identity, and then we're putting time and

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Speaker 1: effort and money and all of this stuff resources into

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Speaker 1: this thing. Those The fact that we've dumped all of

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Speaker 1: that into the decision to be on the path that

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Speaker 1: we're on means that when we're faced with a decision

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Speaker 1: about whether to quit or persevere, we're going to have

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Speaker 1: a tendency to persevere because we've accumulated all of this

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Speaker 1: debris like a catamari ball. But what's interesting is that

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Speaker 1: the fact that that pushes us to persevere means that

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Speaker 1: now we persevere, and now we put more time and

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Speaker 1: more effort and more money and more resources and more

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Speaker 1: of our identity into the thing that we're doing, which

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Speaker 1: means that the next point that we're thinking about whether

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Speaker 1: to quit or persevere, the ball is bigger. It's starting

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Speaker 1: to become house sized, which makes us then more likely

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Speaker 1: to persevere again, and so on and so forth, until

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Speaker 1: you have like this katamari that's the size of a planet,

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Speaker 1: and you kind of can't quit at that point. So

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Speaker 1: now if we go back to Rob Hall, we can

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Speaker 1: see the problem, right, because he's carrying a lot of

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Speaker 1: that with him. He failed the year before. He's made

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Speaker 1: a promise to Doug Hanson and that he's going to

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Speaker 1: get him up, and that causes this myopia for him

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Speaker 1: to sort of, I think, not to see the situation

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Speaker 1: for what it is, which is one that you should quit,

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Speaker 1: go back down the mountain, grab Doug Hanson and then

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe you have a chance the next year.

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering Annie if you can talk a bit about

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Speaker 1: the role of regret and all this, because there is

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Speaker 1: a regret asymmetry that's important to acknowledge here, which is,

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Speaker 1: we tend to feel a lot of regret when we

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Speaker 1: think about the idea of quitting, but somehow staying with

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Speaker 1: the status quo does not fill us with those same

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Speaker 1: feelings of regret. And so can you just talk to

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Speaker 1: listeners a bit about regret asymmetry generally and how that

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Speaker 1: plays a profound role in our conception of quitting. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's an antagonist towards quitting. Yeah, so there's two really

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Speaker 1: important biases to think about because they collide here when

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Speaker 1: it comes to quitting. The first cognitive bias is called

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Speaker 1: status quo bias. Status quo bias is that we have

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Speaker 1: a preference for the path that we're already on. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we don't like to change. We have a preference

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Speaker 1: to keep going the way that we're going. That collides

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Speaker 1: with another bias, which is called omission comission bias, and

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Speaker 1: what that is is that failing to act does not

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Speaker 1: feel as much like a decision as acting does. Right,

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Speaker 1: So let's say that I'm in a career or I'm

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Speaker 1: in a relationship and I just stay the path. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't feel like I've made a decision. If I move,

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Speaker 1: If I quit my job and change, if I break

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Speaker 1: up in the relationship, now it feels like I've actually

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Speaker 1: made a decision. Now. The reason why this is an

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Speaker 1: error is because the decision to stay in the job

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Speaker 1: is also an active decision, and you should treat it

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Speaker 1: the same way like our regret treats those two things differently. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so let's say that you're in a job that is

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Speaker 1: just awful. I have had conversations with people quite often

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Speaker 1: where this happens. They come to me and they say,

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Speaker 1: I really hate my job. I'm trying to decide whether

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Speaker 1: I should quit. I don't really know what I should do,

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Speaker 1: and I ask them this question. Imagine it's a year

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Speaker 1: from now and you're still in the job that you're in.

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Speaker 1: Do you think you'll be happy? And they say no.

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Speaker 1: So what they're telling me is that one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of the time, twelve months from now, I will be

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Speaker 1: unhappy in the job that I'm in. So now I

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Speaker 1: say to them, Okay, let's say that you quit this

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Speaker 1: job and you go get this other job that you're

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Speaker 1: thinking about. Imagine it's a year from now, do you

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Speaker 1: think you'll be happy? And they'll say, well, some of

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Speaker 1: the time, you know, they'll say, let's just say they

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Speaker 1: say it's a fifty fifty chance. Okay, So they say,

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Speaker 1: if I switch fifty percent of the time, I'll be happy,

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of the time I won't. Now, when I

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Speaker 1: put it that way, it becomes obvious that you ought

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Speaker 1: to quit because one path you're unhappy one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of the time, and another path you're unhappy fifty percent

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Speaker 1: of the time. So it seems clear that you ought

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Speaker 1: to go take the other job. But this is where

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Speaker 1: the regret asymmetry comes in. Which is like, we're very

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Speaker 1: tolerant of the unhappiness that occurs and just staying the course,

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Speaker 1: and we're very intolerant of the unhappiness that might occur

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Speaker 1: if we switch, and that they'll actually express that out loud.

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Speaker 1: They'll say, but what if I take the new job

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Speaker 1: and I'm unhappy, I'll feel like such an idiot versus

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Speaker 1: staying the job that I know I hate and I

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Speaker 1: already know have evidence I'm unhappy in Yeah. Right, we'll

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Speaker 1: be back in a moment with a slight change of plans,

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Speaker 1: when Annie will share scientific strategies you can use to

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Speaker 1: quit more often and sooner. One of the things that

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Speaker 1: you said before that really struck me is around this

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Speaker 1: concept of identity. And the reason is that so much

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Speaker 1: of a slight change of plans is about our identity,

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Speaker 1: how fixed we can feel in our sense of identity

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Speaker 1: in the face of a big change, and how it

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Speaker 1: is that we can navigate that. And one of the

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Speaker 1: things you alluded to is we can sometimes resist quitting

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Speaker 1: even when we know we ought to, because we attach

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Speaker 1: that pursuit so closely to our identity, or we take

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Speaker 1: so much pride in our identity as good decision makers.

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Speaker 1: We don't like the idea of having it revealed to

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Speaker 1: us that maybe we didn't actually make a great decision

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Speaker 1: in the first place when we decided to do X

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Speaker 1: or Y. And I'm wondering if you have tips for

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Speaker 1: listeners about how it is that we can disentangle our

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Speaker 1: sense of identity from these kinds of decisions or from

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Speaker 1: the attachment we have towards certain pursuits, so that we

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Speaker 1: can make clearer choices, more rational choices at these inflection points.

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Speaker 1: So you talked about like, it's really hard for us

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Speaker 1: to imagine that we made a bad decision, so we

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Speaker 1: won't give it up. But I also want to add

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Speaker 1: in there, sometimes we made a perfectly good decision but

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Speaker 1: the circumstances have changed. But in that situation, we don't

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Speaker 1: want to give up because somehow we think it invalidates

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Speaker 1: the decision that we made in the first place, which

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Speaker 1: isn't true. Remember, we're making decisions under uncertainty, and I

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Speaker 1: think that's part of the problem is we forget that

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Speaker 1: there's a third possibility, which is you made a perfectly

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Speaker 1: fine decision and then you found out new stuff. And

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Speaker 1: that's also by the true in relationships, like, given what

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Speaker 1: you knew at the time, it seems like a really

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Speaker 1: good match, and then you found out new stuff like

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Speaker 1: that person might have changed. I think that's incredibly important

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Speaker 1: for people to understand, is that sometimes stuff just changes.

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Speaker 1: It's okay. Doesn't mean that you that you messed up

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Speaker 1: in the first place, and and most of the time

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Speaker 1: you didn't mess up in the first place. Mike, If

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Speaker 1: you put a sign on your lawn for a candidate

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Speaker 1: and then the candidate gets involved in some scandal, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean it was like it was a bad decision

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Speaker 1: for you to vote for them in the first place

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Speaker 1: because you didn't know. Yeah, And I love the thought

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Speaker 1: experiment that you give, which I think elucidates this concept well,

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Speaker 1: which is when you ask people what's the best decision

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Speaker 1: you've ever made? What's the worst decision you've ever made?

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Speaker 1: We tend to not focus on the process by which

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Speaker 1: we made the decision or the inputs to that decision,

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Speaker 1: but instead what the outcome was. So what you found

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Speaker 1: is you asked people what was the best decision, Well,

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Speaker 1: they tend to choose the thing that had the best outcome,

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Speaker 1: and vice versa for the bad one, and it's very possible.

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Speaker 1: Like you said that, let's say you made actually a

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Speaker 1: really crappy decision, but you just lucked out, right, like

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Speaker 1: chance worked in your favor and new information appeared or whatnot,

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Speaker 1: and you ended up with a good outcome. But I

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Speaker 1: think that is a really helpful thought experiment, because to

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Speaker 1: your point, you might have very well made the decision

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Speaker 1: to take on a pursuit or support a certain candidate,

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Speaker 1: and it was a very smart choice given all the

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Speaker 1: information you had had at that moment, or or by

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Speaker 1: the way your own preferences can change. I just want to, like,

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Speaker 1: I want to make that really clear. Like I know,

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Speaker 1: for me, like the things that I thought that I

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Speaker 1: wanted for myself in my twenties are like very different

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Speaker 1: than the things that I wanted for myself in my thirties. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So what's interesting there is that if somebody else were

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Speaker 1: to look at the path you're on, Like if somebody

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Speaker 1: else were to look at the decision about whether you

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Speaker 1: should sell that stock or the decision about whether you

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Speaker 1: should change careers, they'll often see that more clearly than

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Speaker 1: you because they're not endowed to it. If you have

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Speaker 1: somebody else looking at the decision. They don't have this,

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Speaker 1: they don't have the dissonance. They don't. They don't. They're

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Speaker 1: not worried about squaring your past actions with your future

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Speaker 1: actions or your present actions. They're just worried about whether

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Speaker 1: it's sort of the best decision for you going forward.

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Speaker 1: So you can see that getting somebody else to look

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Speaker 1: at the decision and help you with it is actually

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Speaker 1: going to be really helpful. So, as the amazing Daniel

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Speaker 1: Kneman No About laureate said to me, you should find

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Speaker 1: someone who loves you but doesn't care about your feelings.

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Speaker 1: I love that. Just like, present the situation to somebody

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Speaker 1: else in an objective way and have them help you. So, like,

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Speaker 1: in the simplest sense, if you're thinking about changing jobs

404
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Speaker 1: and you're really struggling with that for all of these

405
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Speaker 1: reasons and the whole Katamari right, like that all of

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Speaker 1: that debris that you're accumulating when you're thinking about changing

407
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Speaker 1: careers after like you know, fifteen years and training in

408
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Speaker 1: college and all of this stuff, have someone else help

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Speaker 1: you with the decision. They'll probably see it more clearly

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Speaker 1: than you do. So that's like trick number one. Trick

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Speaker 1: number two is to set the circumstances under which you

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Speaker 1: might quit in advance of you having accumulated any of

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Speaker 1: that debris when the Katamari is just really tiny and

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Speaker 1: it's not planet sized yet, right, So if we can

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Speaker 1: do that when it's tiny and we haven't actually accumulated

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Speaker 1: all of that stuff, then when it comes time to quitting,

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Speaker 1: will be better at it. So let me give you

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Speaker 1: a really good example of designing in advance turnaround times.

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Speaker 1: So remember our intrepid climbers on Everest who turned around

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Speaker 1: at one pm. Now, notice those three climbers did, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of other people did it. So this is

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Speaker 1: not perfect. Right, It's not going to work one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent of the time, But if they didn't have those

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Speaker 1: turnaround time, those three people would not have turned around.

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Speaker 1: So it works some of the time and some of

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Speaker 1: the time, last time I checked, is better than none

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Speaker 1: of the time. So one of the things that we

428
00:23:47,276 --> 00:23:49,036
Speaker 1: want to do when we go in, whether it's a

429
00:23:49,076 --> 00:23:52,156
Speaker 1: relationship or a job or anything, is we want to

430
00:23:52,156 --> 00:23:55,396
Speaker 1: sort of think before we enter into it, what are

431
00:23:55,436 --> 00:23:58,156
Speaker 1: the things that could be occurring that would cause me

432
00:23:58,236 --> 00:24:03,836
Speaker 1: to want to quit. Here another tactic, another strategy we

433
00:24:03,876 --> 00:24:06,636
Speaker 1: can use to quit closer to when we should is

434
00:24:07,276 --> 00:24:10,116
Speaker 1: to increase the flexibility and how we set goals, right,

435
00:24:10,196 --> 00:24:13,236
Speaker 1: we tend to think about the world in binaries. Right,

436
00:24:13,316 --> 00:24:16,076
Speaker 1: you got to the top of Mount Everest, or you

437
00:24:16,116 --> 00:24:18,876
Speaker 1: didn't get to the time completely fail exactly, even though

438
00:24:18,916 --> 00:24:21,276
Speaker 1: you may have gotten seven eighths of the way there.

439
00:24:21,676 --> 00:24:24,316
Speaker 1: And I think this is compounded by what's called the

440
00:24:24,356 --> 00:24:27,876
Speaker 1: goal gradient effect, which says that we see increases in

441
00:24:27,956 --> 00:24:31,556
Speaker 1: our motivational levels the closer we are to reaching our goal. Right,

442
00:24:31,636 --> 00:24:34,996
Speaker 1: So in that seven eighth stretch of the mountain, right,

443
00:24:35,356 --> 00:24:38,916
Speaker 1: our will, our desire is is amplified in ways that

444
00:24:38,956 --> 00:24:41,636
Speaker 1: can be very counterproductive. So can you talk a bit

445
00:24:41,676 --> 00:24:45,276
Speaker 1: more about how listeners can set I guess what I

446
00:24:45,276 --> 00:24:47,676
Speaker 1: would call more reasonable goals so that we don't find

447
00:24:47,676 --> 00:24:51,316
Speaker 1: ourselves between a rock and a hard place. Yeah, so okay,

448
00:24:51,356 --> 00:24:56,116
Speaker 1: So there's this amazing work by Maurice Schweitzer who's at

449
00:24:56,156 --> 00:25:01,156
Speaker 1: Wharton at University of Pennsylvania, who he's really talked about.

450
00:25:01,196 --> 00:25:03,116
Speaker 1: You know, I think that we have this idea that

451
00:25:03,156 --> 00:25:06,276
Speaker 1: goals are just generally good, like as a universal right.

452
00:25:06,316 --> 00:25:09,076
Speaker 1: Like there's all this literature on goal setting as a motive,

453
00:25:09,156 --> 00:25:12,316
Speaker 1: national force and He's coming at it from the other side.

454
00:25:12,316 --> 00:25:14,356
Speaker 1: He's saying, there's a real downside to coals, which is

455
00:25:14,396 --> 00:25:16,836
Speaker 1: exactly what you talked about, which is, when you have

456
00:25:16,876 --> 00:25:19,516
Speaker 1: a goal, it does two things to you. One is

457
00:25:19,556 --> 00:25:24,116
Speaker 1: it necessarily privileges certain values that you might have and

458
00:25:24,236 --> 00:25:28,756
Speaker 1: de privileges other values that you might have. So super simple,

459
00:25:28,876 --> 00:25:33,516
Speaker 1: if you're going for Everest, you're privileging that goal, right,

460
00:25:33,556 --> 00:25:34,956
Speaker 1: like I want to get to Everest, But what are

461
00:25:34,996 --> 00:25:41,436
Speaker 1: you deprivileging comfort? You're deprivileging time with your family because

462
00:25:41,476 --> 00:25:44,836
Speaker 1: it takes months to do it away from your family, right,

463
00:25:45,756 --> 00:25:48,076
Speaker 1: so and so forth. So you can see that whatever

464
00:25:48,156 --> 00:25:51,956
Speaker 1: we're doing, you know, if we're spending time trying to

465
00:25:52,476 --> 00:25:55,196
Speaker 1: do that last stretch of a project, we're deprivileging other

466
00:25:55,236 --> 00:25:57,356
Speaker 1: goals that we might have, like spending time with our

467
00:25:57,356 --> 00:26:01,716
Speaker 1: family or watching ted Lasso or cook taking a cooking

468
00:26:01,756 --> 00:26:04,516
Speaker 1: class or whatever it is. So I think that we

469
00:26:04,556 --> 00:26:07,676
Speaker 1: need to be very thoughtful about if when I think

470
00:26:07,676 --> 00:26:10,156
Speaker 1: about this goal, first of all, what am I not

471
00:26:10,196 --> 00:26:14,596
Speaker 1: seeing and what am I giving up that I'm following

472
00:26:14,596 --> 00:26:17,796
Speaker 1: this goal? And then we also collide that with goals

473
00:26:17,876 --> 00:26:21,436
Speaker 1: or also past fail So in a lot of ways.

474
00:26:22,116 --> 00:26:24,276
Speaker 1: It's better to have never tried to go up Everest

475
00:26:24,316 --> 00:26:26,356
Speaker 1: at all than to have gotten with them three hundred

476
00:26:26,356 --> 00:26:30,356
Speaker 1: feet of the summit and turned around. So that's also

477
00:26:30,436 --> 00:26:32,996
Speaker 1: a problem. Yeah, all right, So how do we solve

478
00:26:33,036 --> 00:26:34,836
Speaker 1: for this. There's kind of two ways that we solve

479
00:26:34,876 --> 00:26:37,516
Speaker 1: for it. So the first way that we can do

480
00:26:37,596 --> 00:26:41,836
Speaker 1: is to remember the word unless. And this is really

481
00:26:41,836 --> 00:26:44,116
Speaker 1: important and it goes back to this idea that I

482
00:26:44,636 --> 00:26:48,076
Speaker 1: was talking about before, of think about these things in advance. Right,

483
00:26:48,116 --> 00:26:52,036
Speaker 1: So it's totally fine to say this is my goal

484
00:26:53,236 --> 00:26:58,356
Speaker 1: unless right. So my goal is to reach the summit

485
00:26:58,996 --> 00:27:04,596
Speaker 1: unless there's really bad weather or it's past one pm.

486
00:27:04,636 --> 00:27:07,916
Speaker 1: So this idea of this is my goal unless allows

487
00:27:07,956 --> 00:27:11,756
Speaker 1: you to say I am set in this goal given

488
00:27:11,796 --> 00:27:15,156
Speaker 1: what my information is right now. The second thing I

489
00:27:15,236 --> 00:27:20,356
Speaker 1: think so I was speaking to Ken Kamler, who it's

490
00:27:20,396 --> 00:27:23,076
Speaker 1: really amazing. He had been a doctor on Everest actually

491
00:27:23,076 --> 00:27:25,476
Speaker 1: six different times, and he said something I think that

492
00:27:25,596 --> 00:27:30,036
Speaker 1: was really profound. He said, people forget when they're climbing

493
00:27:30,036 --> 00:27:31,876
Speaker 1: Everest that the goal of Everest is not to get

494
00:27:31,916 --> 00:27:34,636
Speaker 1: to the summit. The goal is to get back down

495
00:27:34,636 --> 00:27:38,436
Speaker 1: to the base of the mountain. And why I think

496
00:27:38,476 --> 00:27:40,796
Speaker 1: that that's so powerful is that he's talking about a

497
00:27:40,836 --> 00:27:44,876
Speaker 1: time horizon. Problem is that we get really wrapped up

498
00:27:44,876 --> 00:27:46,396
Speaker 1: in the short term a loot, when we ought to

499
00:27:46,676 --> 00:27:49,716
Speaker 1: be thinking about the long term what is going to

500
00:27:49,796 --> 00:27:51,956
Speaker 1: make us happy? Like if you're going to set a goal,

501
00:27:51,956 --> 00:27:53,716
Speaker 1: you should think about a long term goal, like what

502
00:27:53,876 --> 00:27:57,236
Speaker 1: is your goal over the course of your life, and

503
00:27:57,396 --> 00:27:59,676
Speaker 1: in the shortest form that should be like to maximize

504
00:27:59,676 --> 00:28:04,596
Speaker 1: your happiness. So as you're staying in an incredibly miserable

505
00:28:04,676 --> 00:28:09,236
Speaker 1: career because you've put so much time into it and

506
00:28:09,316 --> 00:28:11,996
Speaker 1: so much effort, and you don't want all of that

507
00:28:12,036 --> 00:28:13,636
Speaker 1: to go to waste, and you don't want all the

508
00:28:13,676 --> 00:28:17,316
Speaker 1: training to go to waste, and you're worried that what

509
00:28:17,396 --> 00:28:19,196
Speaker 1: does it mean if you quit for who you are

510
00:28:19,316 --> 00:28:22,156
Speaker 1: because you're an engineer or you're whatever, And then what

511
00:28:22,196 --> 00:28:24,676
Speaker 1: will you be if you quit? And what will other

512
00:28:24,716 --> 00:28:28,156
Speaker 1: people think about you? Won't they judge you for quitting?

513
00:28:28,596 --> 00:28:31,756
Speaker 1: And all of that stuff that creates that planet sized

514
00:28:31,876 --> 00:28:35,716
Speaker 1: katamari that stops us from quitting. When you're caught up

515
00:28:35,716 --> 00:28:38,156
Speaker 1: in that all of that stuff is weighing so heavily

516
00:28:38,196 --> 00:28:41,076
Speaker 1: on you, it makes it really really hard to leave.

517
00:28:41,676 --> 00:28:45,356
Speaker 1: But you're miserable. And if you think about the long

518
00:28:45,476 --> 00:28:49,156
Speaker 1: term goal of what in the end, as I look

519
00:28:49,196 --> 00:28:51,756
Speaker 1: back on my life is going to have made me happy.

520
00:28:52,276 --> 00:28:54,476
Speaker 1: I think that when you can get to that more

521
00:28:54,556 --> 00:28:57,076
Speaker 1: long term thinking, you'll realize that grinding it out in

522
00:28:57,076 --> 00:29:00,076
Speaker 1: a horrible career with a boss who is a nightmare

523
00:29:00,476 --> 00:29:03,876
Speaker 1: in a toxic work environment is not in the long run,

524
00:29:03,996 --> 00:29:08,636
Speaker 1: going to make you really happy. So, for our listeners

525
00:29:08,676 --> 00:29:13,676
Speaker 1: who are anxiety around quitting, right, I'm wondering, it's not

526
00:29:13,676 --> 00:29:15,676
Speaker 1: a full proof plant. Right. I'm sure there have been

527
00:29:15,676 --> 00:29:17,956
Speaker 1: things that you may have regretted quitting at some point

528
00:29:17,956 --> 00:29:20,796
Speaker 1: in your life. But the upside is that you probably

529
00:29:20,876 --> 00:29:24,596
Speaker 1: learned something valuable about your own decision making process and

530
00:29:24,636 --> 00:29:27,236
Speaker 1: how to improve that decision making process around quitting. So

531
00:29:27,476 --> 00:29:29,636
Speaker 1: do you mind just sharing any regret you have about

532
00:29:29,636 --> 00:29:31,996
Speaker 1: something you quit? But what you learn from that experience,

533
00:29:34,316 --> 00:29:37,996
Speaker 1: you know? So the funny thing is so, so I

534
00:29:38,036 --> 00:29:41,556
Speaker 1: actually I actually regret quitting academics in the first place.

535
00:29:41,876 --> 00:29:43,876
Speaker 1: Part of what made me not go back to academics

536
00:29:43,876 --> 00:29:46,316
Speaker 1: earlier was because I thought that all the people that

537
00:29:46,396 --> 00:29:50,396
Speaker 1: I had studied with would be mad at me, including

538
00:29:51,116 --> 00:29:53,996
Speaker 1: my amazing advisor and I thought, oh, she must you know,

539
00:29:54,036 --> 00:29:55,556
Speaker 1: I just had it in my head that she must

540
00:29:55,556 --> 00:29:59,476
Speaker 1: be so mad at me for quitting. And we reconnected

541
00:30:00,836 --> 00:30:03,396
Speaker 1: ten years ago and she was so the opposite of

542
00:30:03,516 --> 00:30:07,596
Speaker 1: mad at me. And that is a lesson that everybody

543
00:30:07,636 --> 00:30:09,396
Speaker 1: needs to learn. It's like, whatever you think think that

544
00:30:09,436 --> 00:30:11,276
Speaker 1: other people are thinking about you, it's probably not what

545
00:30:11,316 --> 00:30:15,756
Speaker 1: they're actually thinking. And I stopped myself from I deprived

546
00:30:15,876 --> 00:30:18,796
Speaker 1: myself of a really important relationship in my life and

547
00:30:18,836 --> 00:30:22,556
Speaker 1: the ability to actually be doing academics at the same

548
00:30:22,596 --> 00:30:24,396
Speaker 1: time as I was doing something else that I loved

549
00:30:24,396 --> 00:30:27,796
Speaker 1: in a much fuller way because I got caught up

550
00:30:27,836 --> 00:30:30,436
Speaker 1: thinking about how other people might judge me. And I

551
00:30:30,476 --> 00:30:32,476
Speaker 1: think that's a lot of what stops us from quitting.

552
00:30:32,836 --> 00:30:35,636
Speaker 1: And when I came back to academics, everybody welcomed me

553
00:30:35,676 --> 00:30:37,596
Speaker 1: with open arms, and it was all living in my head.

554
00:30:37,956 --> 00:30:40,116
Speaker 1: And so I would say, that's like the biggest lesson

555
00:30:40,156 --> 00:30:43,356
Speaker 1: for me. I love that so much. Yeah, And you know,

556
00:30:43,396 --> 00:30:45,236
Speaker 1: to your point, I think so much of your research

557
00:30:45,276 --> 00:30:47,716
Speaker 1: and this upcoming book of yours is about how we

558
00:30:48,116 --> 00:30:51,796
Speaker 1: rehabilitate quitting. And I think as a society, the way

559
00:30:51,836 --> 00:30:54,316
Speaker 1: that we can change cultural norms around quitting is to

560
00:30:54,356 --> 00:30:57,556
Speaker 1: recognize the compassion people will show us in the face

561
00:30:57,556 --> 00:31:00,316
Speaker 1: of quitting and the lack of judgment that you know

562
00:31:00,356 --> 00:31:02,676
Speaker 1: that we think is going to exist in our heads,

563
00:31:02,676 --> 00:31:06,116
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, but doesn't necessarily need to be the case.

564
00:31:06,436 --> 00:31:09,476
Speaker 1: And I think that when you approach things is either

565
00:31:09,676 --> 00:31:13,516
Speaker 1: or it becomes it puts a lot of extra pressure

566
00:31:13,556 --> 00:31:16,756
Speaker 1: on you that you're closing the door to something. And

567
00:31:16,916 --> 00:31:19,396
Speaker 1: when I talk to people who, for example, are about

568
00:31:19,836 --> 00:31:24,956
Speaker 1: are thinking about like changing careers and they're really having

569
00:31:24,956 --> 00:31:26,476
Speaker 1: a hard time with it, one of the things that

570
00:31:26,516 --> 00:31:28,356
Speaker 1: I always ask them is can you go back to

571
00:31:28,436 --> 00:31:31,996
Speaker 1: the other career if this doesn't work out? And they'll

572
00:31:32,036 --> 00:31:34,516
Speaker 1: normally say yes, there's no reason why they can't, and

573
00:31:34,596 --> 00:31:37,596
Speaker 1: that seems to free them up to make the change.

574
00:31:37,676 --> 00:31:39,516
Speaker 1: And I think that we have a tendency to think

575
00:31:39,516 --> 00:31:43,116
Speaker 1: of decisions is last and final, and in poker, you

576
00:31:43,196 --> 00:31:45,476
Speaker 1: definitely can't think about it that way. That's that's one

577
00:31:45,476 --> 00:31:47,196
Speaker 1: of the things that poker trained me to do, is

578
00:31:47,236 --> 00:31:50,996
Speaker 1: to realize decisions are not last and final, and you

579
00:31:50,996 --> 00:31:54,716
Speaker 1: can always change course mid stream, and you can often

580
00:31:54,716 --> 00:31:58,916
Speaker 1: get back to choices that you rejected. And if we

581
00:31:59,116 --> 00:32:03,036
Speaker 1: realize that more. I think that we would be more exploratory,

582
00:32:03,036 --> 00:32:05,716
Speaker 1: and it would it would make our outcomes better. Actually

583
00:32:26,996 --> 00:32:29,236
Speaker 1: join me next week when we'll hear from John Elder

584
00:32:29,356 --> 00:32:34,916
Speaker 1: robeson he underwent experimental brain stimulation to deepen his emotional intelligence.

585
00:32:35,356 --> 00:32:37,276
Speaker 1: And I'm walking through the mall and I'm just like

586
00:32:37,356 --> 00:32:41,156
Speaker 1: looking around at the people and it was not beauty

587
00:32:41,196 --> 00:32:44,836
Speaker 1: and sweetness and light. It was like fear and anxiety

588
00:32:44,916 --> 00:32:47,876
Speaker 1: and worry and jealousy and all these things that they

589
00:32:47,876 --> 00:32:50,716
Speaker 1: are all coming at me from a million different directions,

590
00:32:51,076 --> 00:33:02,996
Speaker 1: and there was nothing I could do. A Slight Change

591
00:33:02,996 --> 00:33:05,796
Speaker 1: of Plans is created written an executive produced by me

592
00:33:05,996 --> 00:33:08,916
Speaker 1: Maya Shunker. The best part of creating this show is

593
00:33:09,116 --> 00:33:12,596
Speaker 1: getting to collaborate with my formidable Slight Change family. This

594
00:33:12,756 --> 00:33:17,076
Speaker 1: includes Tyler Green, our senior producer, Jen Guera, our senior editor,

595
00:33:17,476 --> 00:33:21,596
Speaker 1: Then Holiday, our sound engineer, Emily Rosteck our associate producer,

596
00:33:21,836 --> 00:33:25,756
Speaker 1: and Neil Lavelle, our executive producer. Louise Scara wrote our

597
00:33:25,836 --> 00:33:28,956
Speaker 1: delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.

598
00:33:29,796 --> 00:33:32,636
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,

599
00:33:32,716 --> 00:33:36,116
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there and of course a

600
00:33:36,356 --> 00:33:39,676
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a

601
00:33:39,716 --> 00:33:42,756
Speaker 1: slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker

602
00:33:43,196 --> 00:33:46,076
Speaker 1: and please remember to subscribe, share, and rate the show

603
00:33:46,156 --> 00:33:50,076
Speaker 1: to help get the word out. See you next week now.

604
00:33:50,556 --> 00:33:52,756
Speaker 1: I just want to set this stage for people, because

605
00:33:52,756 --> 00:33:54,756
Speaker 1: this was in the nineties. Poker was not on TV,

606
00:33:55,316 --> 00:33:57,556
Speaker 1: and pretty much every discussion I had with people where

607
00:33:57,596 --> 00:33:59,916
Speaker 1: they said what are you doing right now and I said, well,

608
00:33:59,956 --> 00:34:03,036
Speaker 1: employed poker usually well, the first thing that would ask

609
00:34:03,076 --> 00:34:06,076
Speaker 1: is is your husband rich? Which you know this within

610
00:34:06,156 --> 00:34:09,876
Speaker 1: the nineties, it's like, wow, that's super sexist. But then

611
00:34:09,956 --> 00:34:12,836
Speaker 1: once they sort of figured out no, like I was

612
00:34:12,876 --> 00:34:16,756
Speaker 1: actually supporting supporting us with this endeavor, they would usually

613
00:34:16,756 --> 00:34:18,556
Speaker 1: ask if I had gone to gamblers Anonymous