Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Why Knowing When to Quit May Be the Best of All Strategies w/ John R. Miles EP 226

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

In this episode, I discuss the significance of knowing when to quit vs. when to persevere. Quitting is crucial for your long-term personal development, and knowing when to leave can be the wisest choice you make, whether it's a career that's not satisfying you or a relationship that's not suitable for you. Welcome to Momentum Friday! What I Discuss About Knowing When to Quit In today’s episode, I’ll explain why perseverance is a good trait. I will then discuss the human tendency to persevere for too long and teach you when and how to correctly quit a path that no longer serves you. I will begin with the story of an unfortunate tragedy on Mount Everest, which might have been avoided if the involved climbers had simply known the right time to quit. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/knowing-when-to-quit-is-best-of-all-strategies/  Brought to you by POM Wonderful, Shopify, and Omaha Steaks. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/tJVA76VX7Fg  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Did you hear my interview with Robin Sharma, one of the top personal mastery and leadership coaches in the world and a multiple-time number-one New York Times best-selling author? Catch up with episode 209: Robin Sharma on Why Changing the World Starts by Changing Ourselves ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_sruck_podcast Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast, remember, you can never go too far in the wrong direction, that you can't quit and change your path for good. So carefully assess your circumstance, be honest with yourself, seek the counsel of those with your interest at heart, and take the bold step of quitting what you need to quit. Welcome to Passion Struck.

Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors,

CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to Momentum Friday, an episode 226 of PassionStruck, recently ranked over the past month in the top 20 health and fitness podcasts. And thank you to each and every one of you, come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you would just like to introduce this to a friend or family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that. We now have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans, favorite episodes, that we organize and convene you topics to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything that we do here on the show.

Disco, to passionstruck.com, slash starter packs, or Spotify, get started. And in case you missed my episodes from earlier in the week, they included Dr. Alisa Hallerman, and we released her brand new book, Sobriety, where we talk about how do you overcome trauma, confront addiction, and reconnect with your soul. I also had on a very special episode with my co-host, my sister Carolyn Miles, and Dr. Michael Pishvin, who is one of the leading pancreatic cancer doctors in the world from Johns Hopkins University, and we discuss all things battling pancreatic cancer. I also wanted to acknowledge our fan of the week, Sonya Strange, who writes, "...This podcast with Rachel Hollis touched my heart. I'm always amazed by all the episodes I listened to from you.

This one gave me such a big life lesson. I have been so wrong for the past 14 years, thinking that I couldn't overcome seasons of hardships. The advice that both you and Rachel gave helped me to see my hardships differently. Thank you, John, so much for your perspectives and reflections that you bring to us every week. Every time that I feel down, I find an episode that makes me feel better again. You are a blessing to the world.

Sonia, thank you so much for that heartfelt review. And thank you to all of you who give us ratings and also these reviews. They go such a long way in helping us to increase the popularity of the show, but more importantly, increase this passion-struct community and getting the word out to the people who need it. Now let's talk about today's episode. A few weeks ago, I interviewed former professional poker player, behavioral scientist, and New York Times best-selling author, Annie Duke, about the topic of quitting. That interview inspired today's episode,

I know when, when is the right time to quit. In our interview, Annie said, being quitting allows you to make better choices about when to be gritty. Never give up, don't quit. Keep on going. In the Vince Lombardi Famous quote, winners never quit and quitters never win. Are all popular, well-meaning statements made to challenge and encourage us to be our very best selves

and to persevere until we achieve success along our journeys. They can motivate us to strive hard and attain seemingly impossible goals against the odds. However, they're not always applicable in every situation that we face in life. For instance, let's talk about the start-up world, where the founders get emotionally and financially connected to their business. For many, it even defines their entire identity. The simple truth though, is that most start- startups fail. After a few years of the founders

grinding it out, let's face it, startups are challenging, and 99% of them never generate a million dollars of sales annually. But no one likes to be the person who gives up, but sometimes it's the best outcome overall. In the case of startups, perhaps the venture is no longer bringing the founder joy. Maybe they've lost their emotional connection to the business. The business simply is not growing and they're putting more and more money into it, or it's impacting their health and relationships. Whatever the reason, it may be time for them to stop. But that begs the question, how can you tell when it's proper to keep persevering and

when to quit? Like the startup example, it's common to be heading in the wrong direction in many areas of our lives, but trying to persist to make the circumstances work out, perhaps you're in a bad relationship or feel stuck in your current profession because it pays you well when you like your lifestyle. In such situations, you might be tempted

to just keep pushing on, hoping that the situation would miraculously change. But if you look deep enough, you will realize that you sometimes need to quit, the path that you are on to focus your time and energy on plotting a new course. And today's episode, I'll start out by explaining why Perseverance is a good trait. I will then discuss the human tendency to persevere for too long, and teach you when and how, to correctly quit a path that no longer serves you. I will begin with the story of an unfortunate tragedy on Mount Everest, which might have

been avoided entirely if the climbers had simply known the right time to quit. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let the journey begin. I'm going to start today by talking about one of the most terrifying stories of disasters that's ever occurred in the mountains. On May 10th, 1996, four groups of climbers set out to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Rob Hall of Adventure Consultants led one group. Scott Fisher of Mountain Madness led another.

The Indo-Tibetian, Order Police, arranged another expedition, and there was also a Taiwanese expedition. The over-commercialization of the mountain, and what some refer to as summit fever, were significant factors in the disaster. According to an account of what happened, on the day of the Ascent, the climbers set out early, in hopes of reaching the summit on time and beginning their descent by 2pm, the latest safe time to ensure that they got back to base camp before nightfall. However, they incurred some delays along their journey to the summit. The most significant delay was caused by the guide ropes not being in place, which took them about two hours to get fixed. This ultimately caused a bottleneck of climbers to build up towards the summit, which slowed everyone's progress down.

A storm had begun developing beneath them at this point. Rob Hall and Scott Fisher's Guides, who were now in charge of their team without Fisher, decided to press on knowing that they would not be able to make it to the summit by 2pm. Many climbers were prepared to go to any means to reach the summit and may have even felt compelled to because others were doing so. Dark clouds were already forming at that point and the snow was starting to fall. This was particularly perilous because it meant that their tracks, which they needed to use as a

road map to find their way back down, would be hidden. By 6 p.m. as the climbers were still continuing their descent, it had intensified into a full-fledged blizzard with gill force winds. The blizzard raged around the 17 climbers while they were trapped on the mountain with their oxygen levels dropping by the minute. Only half of the climbers that had gone out on the mountain that day returned to base camp by 10pm.

The catastrophe resulted from inexperience, unfavorable weather, human error, and a desire for financial gain. Finally, group leaders like Hall and Fisher could not foresee the issues and delays and adequately react to them, but the sunk cost fallacy was another primary factor also in the disaster. The decision to continue the expedition was made based on the team leader's prior success in climbing the peak with novice climbers.

Despite having the option to cancel the entire expedition to protect the climber's lives, the sunk cost fallacy occurred because the guides and climbers continued their undertaking when they should have recognized no and stopped and turned around. They decided to persevere because they had already expended resources such as time, money, and effort.

So what can we learn from that story? A few things. The first we'll go into is knowing when we should persevere. I have found throughout my life that good things don't come easy. And this is true. It takes intentional consistent action, character, and perseverance in order to achieve any worthwhile goal. It's common to feel like giving up when we find things are challenging. And many people typically give up when they reach that point.

Nevertheless, you should keep going even if something is challenging or you're having a poor day. In fact, if handled correctly, bad days conserve as a powerful motivator by serving as a reminder of why a particular objective circumstance or connection is worthwhile. The persevere means to be persistent and refuse to stop until we reach our aim in a job, a business, a relationship, or a career.

Perseverance is an excellent quality and a crucial factor for the success of so many people. As behavioral scientist Angela Duckworth discovered, Perseverance becomes grit, a vital factor for success when combined with passion. Agriably, luck is also a factor in success, but there is simply no serendipity without hard work, along with Perseverance. Being grady helps us stay long enough on a path and improves our chances greatly of getting the much needed luck. Just look at these examples of people who persevered with significant payoffs. JK Rowling was rejected 12 times by publishers, but by not giving up. She eventually became one of the most famous and wealthiest authors with the highest

number of books sold. It took Thomas Edison a thousand attempts before he invented the light bulb. NASA experienced 20 failures in its first 28 attempts to send rockets into space. However, the value of grit is only obtained when you rightly apply it to things that advance your goals. This implies that applying your passion and tenacity for the wrong stuff happens more often than you might think, which leads to the question, why do we persevere for too long? So now that I've discussed the importance of perseverance, let us now look at why we may keep persevering long after we should have stopped. It starts with our mindset and beliefs. Your decisions and actions are greatly influenced by your mindset and beliefs. When you constantly hear statements like don't quit or quitters never win, you internalize them.

You become conditioned to believe that quitting is a negative outcome. When you link the negative perception of quitting to failure, in your mind you become more prone to keep it something you shouldn't continue to be doing. Pride is another thing that gets in our way. Pride is such a dangerous force that can keep you from growing. When a person is full of pride, they refuse to take corrective actions and may even stick to a destructive path even when they're aware of the inherent dangers.

Emility is what makes a person willing to admit their mistakes and quit a course of action that is no longer beneficial to them. Third, we're often too harsh on ourselves. No one is perfect, and we all make poor decisions. When you're too critical of yourself, and you don't give yourself the room to make mistakes, as well as to correct them, you will likely end up sticking to the wrong things for too long, and then there's Line Loyalty. Have you ever been highly loyal to someone just to find out unexpectedly that they had betrayed you? I know I have, as seen by news stories about

business scandals, political intrigue, sports betting, and gangland killings. Loyalty commonly fuels negative characteristics. Line loyalty involves loyalty to a person, a cause, or an organization, even when they exhibit negative traits. It stems from the belief that staying loyal is more important and being objective and choosing the right course of action. Chronyism and Nepotism are common manifestations of loyalty, who wants friends, in business and politics, and so many other things, frequently at the expense of competence and fairness, whether that's real or perceived. And then there's the Sun-Coste fallacy, which I've previously mentioned in the Mount Everest example, and talked about in a previous episode that I did on identifying cognitive

biases and how to avoid them. This fallacy, which is connected, the status quo prejudice, as well as loss of version, can be seen as bias thinking. The sunk-cost fallacy occurs when a person refuses to quit a strategy or course of action because they are so focused on their past investments, even when it is clear that quitting would be in their best interest. For example, you buy a movie ticket, sit in the theater, and after 10 minutes of watching, you realize this is just not a movie that you're up for seeing. At this point, you should probably just cut your losses and quit watching so that you can save your your valuable time and apply it to something else. Because of your bias thinking, you instead stick to watching it because of the money that you've already paid for the ticket.

This is the Passion Struck Podcast. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Shopify. Hear that little chit-chin? That's the satisfying sound of another sale on Shopify. The all-in-one commerce platform trusted by millions of entrepreneurs to create their online store. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving mere mortals like you or me the resources once reserved for big businesses. With a great looking online store and tools to manage the day-to-day and drive sales,

you don't need to know how to code or design to get started on Shopify. Because Shopify grows as your business grows and there's 24 by 7 support if you need help. And once your store is live, Shopify makes getting paid simple. I love how Shopify makes it easy for anyone to successfully run their own business, just like our friend who just started selling pottery. Shopify powers millions of entrepreneurs, just like me, from first sale, the full scale. Now it's your turn to try Shopify for free. Sign up for a free trial at Shopify.com slash passion struck all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash Thank you so much for listening to the show. I love hearing from all of you.

I love the fact that you all have been great to our sponsors because they're the ones that keep the show going as well. You can check out all the sponsors at passionstruck.com slash deals. You'll find all the codes and URLs, all those things are there. So please consider supporting those who support this show now back to the PassionStruck podcast. So that begs the question, how do you know the right time to quit? There is a famous saying, there's a difference between giving up and knowing when to stop. Knowing when you should quit a job, business, relationship, or goal.

Let's face it, is not always clear. This is because we tend to misinterpret temporary inconveniences, which we ought to persevere through to be permanent ones that require us to stop. However, there are certain conditions that should tell you when it is time to stop. Here are just a few. When it harms your physical or mental health, when it no longer fuels your passion, nor gives you room for growth, when your reward is not commensurate with your health, when it no longer fuels your passion, nor gives you room for growth. When your reward is not commensurate with your effort, when it requires you to compromise

your values. So, in order to gain better clarity, here are some questions that you can ask yourself. The first is, why did you start this journey in the first place? Is the original purpose still the purpose that you are pursuing? What are your long-term goals, and does this interfere with them? How does your current situation align with your desires and values? If you were to quit now, what would you use that freed up time and resources for instead? Do you need to change your strategies and methods to more effective ones,

rather than abandon the goal altogether? Have you reached the point that your aspirations are impacting your physical health, mental health, and relationship health? And finally, will your persistence pay off or dig you into a deeper hole in the long run? These are just a sampling of different questions that you can ask yourself. It's best to think of as many as you possibly can and honestly answer them to get the much needed clarity in order for you to make your decision. So now let's explore how do you quit in the right way and Seth Gooden's book The Dip,

a little book that teaches you when to quit. He tells the story of when Jack Welch was the CEO of General Electric. Welch decided to quit funding any of the GE businesses that weren't number one or two in their respective markets. By doing so, he freed up capital to invest in product lines where GE was in one of those top two categories or had a high probability of becoming the best in the category. The decision resulted in GE market share going from $12 billion to $280 billion over the 20 years of Jack Welch being the CEO. He further explained that winners understand

how limited their time, resources, and daily energy actually is. So they learn to recognize quitting as an essential strategy to take advantage of better opportunities. With this understanding, what steps can you take to ensure that you are quitting in the right way? Here are just a few,

maintain a long-term perspective. When you have a short-term perspective of your life, you may focus on what you have in the present, at the expense of what you can achieve in the future. This may cause you to stick too long in unfavorable place, instead of quitting it and heading to a better place that you can be in the future. By maintaining a long-term perspective, you can quickly begin to recognize when a particular job, for your choice, or relationship, whether that's with a loved one or a friend, will not be beneficial to your future self, and therefore recognize when to best quit it. Next, decide ahead.

The right time to decide when you should quit is before you get into a situation that prompts you to quit. Because at this time, your mind is clear, and you can carefully make the choices that will protect not only your values and happiness, but will also prevent you from making rash decisions that are based on either doubts or sentiments. Next, focus on the goal.

Your goals can be fixed, but the means to reaching them can change. Let's take, for example, that you want to get fit, and you start cycling to do so. Then as you start cycling, you realize that you begin to feel constant pain. That's in your knees due to a condition that is aggravated by cycling. In this case, the right thing to do might be to quit cycling and find another exercise that will still help you attain your fitness goals. By focusing on your goal, you will quickly realize when you should quit a particular path because it might have adverse effects and follow a new one.

Next, seek counsel from others. In her book, Quit, the power of knowing when to walk away, any dude talks about the role of a quitting coach to help you make firm decisions on knowing when to quit. This quitting coach could be a parent, a mentor, a friend, and a acquaintance, or anyone else who has your best interest at heart. The reason for having such people in your life is that they will be free of sentiments that you might possess in making decisions and help you be much more objective in knowing when it is time to quit something that is no longer serving its intended purpose.

So I've covered a lot today. Let me start by wrapping this episode up with a famous Chinese proverb that says, of all strategies knowing when to quit may be the best. When was the last time that you received praise for quitting? The majority of us would struggle to recall such a time. After all, giving up is typically equated with failure, frailty, and weakness. Few people aspire to have the reputation of being called a quitter. Instead, our success-driven culture exalts us to persevere through hardships, surmount challenges, and work towards success.

However, just like failure, giving up is a common occurrence in life. There will be times when quitting will be the wisest course of action in our employment, relationships, friendships, businesses, sports, and interests. Understandably, quitting after you have spent so much time and energy on a goal can be challenging and let's face it, painful. Still, those who flourish in life understand that accepting this discomfort now prevents much more pain later. When done constructively, it will lead to greater opportunities,

personal growth, happiness, and satisfaction. Remember, you can never go too far in the wrong direction, that you can't quit and change your path for good. So carefully assess your circumstance. Be honest with yourself, seek the counsel of those with your interest at heart, and take the bold step of quitting what you need to quit. Above all, don't hesitate to quit when you need to. The best course of action may occasionally be to break up a friendship. This continue a relationship. Leave a job, cancel a project, or back out of a commitment. Quitting can be a chance to grow and develop, and a necessity to make a place for positive change. I hope you all enjoyed today's show, and I wanted to thank everyone who wrote in this week,

and especially those who came here today and listened. Thank you so much. A link to the transcript will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles, and we recently also launched a Clips channel at PassionStruck Clips. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show and make it free for our listeners.

I'm at John Armiles, both on Twitter and Instagram, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck Podcast interview I did with Dr. Jonah Berger, who is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and internationally best-selling author and an expert on change, word of mouth, viral marketing, social influence, and how products ideas and behavior catch on. And we discuss his latest book, The Catalyst. How do you change anyone's mind? That's exactly a great catalyst, dude.

They don't push harder. They identify those roadblocks and they mitigate them, right? They figure out, well, why is that person unwilling to change? Or how can I rather than feel like pushing help people see that they can actually choose the outcome that they want? Regardless of what you're doing, regardless of your big organization, a small one, a for-profit, a nonprofit, these barriers come up again and again. And I think the more we understand them, the more we can be effective at changing

minds and driving action. Remember, we rise by lifting others. so share this show with those you love. And if you found today's episode, I'm knowing when to quit useful. Please share it with somebody else who could use the advice that I gave here. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life, passion struck. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw