Grand Slam Journey

41. Coffee with Anna & Dana: Redefining Success; The Power of Quitting and the Art of Perseverance

• Klara Jagosova • Season 2

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"Winners never quit," we've all heard this well-intentioned advice, but have you ever dared to challenge it? Join me and my wonderful guests, Anna and Dana, as we tangle with this age-old wisdom and posit that perhaps quitting could be the unsung hero of success. We'll share personal stories, propose a fresh perspective on the power of quitting, and scrutinize the concept of 'blind perseverance,' which often leaves us committing too much to a cause that might not even align with our ambitions.

"Quit when it's right!" is the mantra we dissect. We navigate the complex decision-making process, discuss the challenges of quitting, and how to strike a balance between perseverance and knowing when to step away. We spotlight 'grit,' often hailed as the secret sauce for success, but we argue that it's not just about being tenacious; it's about discovering the right cause to be determined about. We'll also talk about how making the brave decision to quit can potentially open doors to new opportunities.

Lastly, we will introduce you to a support framework to assist you in making these critical decisions. We also dive into the power of discipline and its role in achieving our aspirations. So, brew yourself a cup of coffee and join Anna, Dana, and myself in this riveting discussion. Remember, quitting doesn't mean you've lost; it could just be the first step toward a win.

This conversation is inspired by the book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke.
Other resources: New York Times Article, "People I (Mostly) Admire" Podcast

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Klara:

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential sports, life after sports and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our skills and leadership and whatever we decide to put our minds into For me personally, areas of business and technology. Today's conversation is one of my regular coffee chat discussions with Anna and Dana, and we decided to dive into a topic that I personally find very hard and somewhat controversial. If you're like me, you're probably someone who grew up in a tough love environment, someone who's been told to never quit, always keep going and always persevere. In fact, i find this mindset quite consistent across most of my friends, who are athletes and entrepreneurs as well. Even yet, any duke in her book Quit the power of knowing when to walk away argues that quitting may perhaps be one of the most important skills that we need to practice From any observation. Most often, we end up too committed to a cause without any good reason other than to preserve ear and the mindset of winners never quit. I purchased Anna's book more than six months ago, and the concept of it makes so much sense and it is so simple, and yet I find myself to continue to come back to it and ponder whether understanding better when to quit is actually the missing piece that can help us excel in the things that we want to do. From my perspective, there's many things in this world and life that are unfair, and it makes no sense complaining about it, but one of the most fair things across the world is that we all have 24 hours in a day, and so we can then decide how we want to spend the 24 hours and what we want to spend it on.

Klara:

Ever since I've been a kid, i've been always very mindful of time. Perhaps it's been the athletic endeavor that have drilled that in me. You always running from one thing to another, balancing multiple things between schools, practices, homework, and every minute of your day and week and month and year is planned. Every single activity has a purpose. My belief about the reality of success is that a true success is only achieved by practicing skills over and over for many hours, months and years. That is when you become great at something, or at least that's when my tennis journey has taught me, and so, when that path was over, i naturally looked for another thing that I could put my mind and effort into, and so, building on that athletic journey whether you're an athlete, an entrepreneur or a corporate executive or just a busy parent, i believe that the difference between good and great is knowing how much time we're spending on what activities, and are we spending the time correctly, in a way that is driving the success and fulfillment we want to get from our endeavors and life in general, and so Annie's book The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, is very thought-provoking for me.

Klara:

It makes me think about the biases that we have related to quitting. How do we balance quit versus grit? What doesn't mean to quit too early or too late? Annie argues that, to the most people around you, quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early. How do we identify the right time to quit something and put our energy into something else? I love her perspective on the sunk cost, fallacy, escalation of commitment and understanding how hard it is to quit status quo.

Klara:

Some of the questions that Anna Dana and I explore are related to how can we create a support framework to help us make the right decisions? How can we learn about ourselves and put things into a greater perspective to make things healthier or better for us in the future? When should we decide which project to pursue and what are our triggers for making a change? Please note that the opinions and the topics discussed in this episode are of our own and shall not be contributed to our employers, apple, dell and Ericsson. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, i want to ask you to please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Share it with someone who you believe may enjoy this well, and don't forget to subscribe. Thank you for listening and happy 4th of July.

Anna:

How does it feel to be back? You must be missing it. It looked like you had a great time.

Dana:

I had a great time and it was such a high that I refused to come down from it. So I'm still going on the vacation high, and our resolution is to make the summer a summit of fun, even though we had our big vacation at the beginning of summer. So we're looking for opportunities to do something fun, which every way it could be small things, big things. We're doing the Thursday $3 for you at the local frozen yogurt, yes, and for the past two days we've been doing strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast.

Klara:

What a great way to start today.

Klara:

Oh my gosh, i can't wait to go on vacation, so should we dive in and topic that came into mind today, inspired by a book quitting by any Duke, and I've actually read this book a while back.

Klara:

I've listened to it since then a number of times, or two certain parts of it a number of times, and for what a reason this book is really sitting with me, and one of the reasons that I think it's a good topic to even discuss, maybe even now, is because I recently moved, and so moving in a simpler way is literally quitting to live in one place and starting to live in a brand new place and kind of recreating your new routine and, in some way, self. And so I've really been thinking about what do I actually want to quit doing? because, even reflecting on all the conversations we all have had and we have similar personalities I've no doubt we all are really good in coming up with all the ideas we can do and keep doing, but I find it personal really hard to think about what I should quit doing or not do. So I thought this could be a good exercise to jump into before we dive in any thoughts ideas.

Dana:

This is a tough challenge so looking forward to see how the conversation will go yeah, i'm curious to.

Klara:

I've actually prepared few snippets from the book that I can maybe play if we think we want to go there, just for ideation.

Anna:

I think all of us are great at initiating and doing new things and adding to the pile, so this is quite a challenge. Like what to remove? it kept me quiet for some time there.

Dana:

I'm still thinking so let me tie that to vacation. So we're home buddies in my household. Like on the weekend, especially on Sunday, nobody wants to go out. We all want to get a hole in and just gonna chill. So one of the things that we want to quit doing this summer is the not doing anything on Sunday and planning fun activity just to keep that cool summer fun. By going so, even though our tendency is to go in and just continue with the status quo and what feels comfortable, we're challenging each person to come up with an idea for something fun. So some of the things that we're looking at is axe throwing.

Dana:

I like it that's a popular activity that's on the rise now yes, i know, and there's a place like not too far from where we live and like this old downtown and was like we're gonna go axe throwing this weekend and I'll come back and report how that goes but I almost feel like it's the total opposite, dana, so you're gonna quit not doing anything and you're gonna keep doing more things.

Klara:

Yes, okay exactly this goes. Based on kind of what my assumption of all of us are really good at finding more things to do, i guess that could be creating more space for new things mmm, that's interesting.

Anna:

Now I see, i see a pie chart in front of me. What are the things of necessity that we have to do? but we need a little bit of a portion of that pie. That are the ignition of the motivation, the fun stuff and new ideas and innovative ideas. How big of that pie should everything be right?

Klara:

yeah, that's on you to decide. Let me just play this clip from Annie that talks about grit and quit, because there's so much in today's culture about the grid in us and never given up attitude. And in order to actually be on the right path of what you want to invest your time in, you need to create that time for it. So you actually have to be really picky on quitting or what you choose to invest your time in so you have actually time for the things that are most important to you. And so in this book kind of my translation of it argues that in our society we don't pay enough attention perhaps on quitting in the right things in the right time and we fall into this never given up and always preserve your theory grit versus quit.

Annie:

We view grit and quit as opposing forces. After all, you either persevere or you abandon course. You can't do both at the same time, and in the battle between the two, quitting has clearly lost. While grit is a virtue, quitting is a vice. The advice of legendarily successful people is often boiled down to the same message stick to things and you will succeed. As Thomas Edison said, our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. Soccer legend Abby Womback echoed the sentiment over a century later when she said you must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit. Similar inspirational advice is attributed to other great sports champions and coaches, such as Babe Ruth, vince Lombardi, bear Bryant, jack Nicklaus, mike Dicka, walter Peyton, joe Montana and Billy Jean King. You can also find almost identical quotes from other legendary business successes through the ages, from Conrad Hilton to Ted Turner to Richard Branson. All these famous people, and countless others, have united behind variations of the expression quitters never win and winners never quit.

Annie:

By definition, anybody who has succeeded at something has stuck with it. That's a statement of fact, always true in hindsight. But that doesn't mean that the inverse is true that if you stick to something you will succeed at it. Prospectively it's neither true nor good advice. In fact, sometimes it's downright destructive.

Annie:

People stick to things all the time that they don't succeed at, sometimes based on the belief that if they stick with it long enough, that will lead to success. Sometimes they stick with it because winners never quit either way. A lot of people are banging their heads against the wall, unhappy because they think there is something wrong with them rather than something wrong with the advice. Success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right thing to stick to and quitting the rest. When the world tells you to quit, it is of course possible you might see something that the world doesn't see, causing you to rightly persist, even when others would abandon the cause. But when the world is screaming at the top of its lungs to quit and you refuse to listen, grit can become folly.

Dana:

Too often we refuse to listen if I can comment on that, i'd like to think that it's important to be perseverant but not stubborn, and to me that's the true definition of grit. Right, you have a conviction, you have a belief, you have something that you want to achieve and you go at it. And you may encounter obstacles, and that determination, that perseverance, pushes you to pull through those obstacles. But at the same time, you got to have leading indicators in place some signals, facts, base decision-making coupled with what you're trying to do, because if the world is feeling that you're to quit, that means that there's some facts there that you need to pay attention to. That's where the non-stoppern piece comes into play.

Dana:

You got to be reasonable and hear the sound of reason so that you can quit. So, to me, quitting something is a combination of two things Combination of logic having the right logical infrastructure in place to help you in decision-making And two, the emotional fortitude, because a lot of time, even when our brain tells us no, that's not good for you, our heart refuses to believe Your emotions can cloud your vision. And so, building that emotional fortitude and maybe a kitchen cabinet of close people next to you when your vision is cloudy, they can be your eyesight and tell you no, you're really got to do that, so it doesn't have to be an individual pursuit. Right, you build your support framework around you so that you can quit when you need to quit, mm-hmm.

Klara:

I love that, and you mentioned some really great things, dana, that Annie actually touches on in the book as well.

Anna:

I'm thinking also, it's easy to fall into that stubbornness because it's psychological right We think we've already invested this time and energy. Right, We don't want to just throw it away.

Klara:

Mm-hmm.

Anna:

And I think that's where we easily end up in just pursuing and continuing And, like Dana said, like we shut our ears off to it when we may get other inputs.

Klara:

Yeah, i think what you're touching on is what also Annie talks about is obviously the sunk cost fallacy.

Anna:

Yes.

Klara:

That goes across the board right. Then we all have seen it in corporations And I've personally seen it in my own personal life I don't know if the two of you can also reflect on it at a time where you feel like you continue to keep going and pushing through And maybe the wiser time would be to stop and reroute. So I can definitely at least identify a few areas of my personal life where I could have probably rerouted Faster or sooner. I just haven't listened enough And also, i'm sure actually all of us between the three of us have work, projects and reflections where things like this probably happened. And so this combination and pretty much the argument is this happens on a small and light scale. Everybody makes the mistakes, whether it's governments, corporations, humans. So how do we not get stuck in this sunk cost fallacy And how do we pause in the right time to make the right decisions?

Anna:

maybe a little bit sooner, i think this is like when you go to the gym and you just work up your cardio or building your strength. You have to do that over time And what I mean with that is building that flexibility and open mindset of always being receptive to new inputs as you're moving along, training yourself to becoming continuously adaptable to new information that comes in that journey and processing that information and sort of making decisions based on that. So the point where you started, that is not the same where you're at now. You had a certain set of information at the starting point but that may have changed now. So you have the freedom and permission to make new decisions based on that. And it's the sunk cost. It's not a waste, because it was a learning journey to bring you where you are.

Anna:

I've certainly learned or trained my brain to be more flexible or adaptable all the time. I usually am not that type of personality myself, because I love to just set a goal and then be super focused on that goal And I've been very good at just shutting out every distraction that may have me deviate from that goal because I'm so goal focused. But I've also learned that just to this point, it's OK to open up. It's a transition period right. Part of it is training yourself to be more adaptable and telling yourself that it's OK. You could still have that focus if you feel that You're not convinced with the new data that's coming in, does that make sense? I think it's a level of maturity, or training yourself in a way.

Klara:

Yeah, And maybe just for a question on the goal, an example. If you set a goal and you didn't meet the goal, what are some of the examples maybe, of that And what was the decision if you wanted to continue or if you wanted to actually quit on that path towards that goal and choose a new one?

Anna:

Well, you constantly reconsider the value of reaching that goal to yourself, and that can change. How much is that worth? How much effort is it worth investing into? What's the takeaway at the end of the day, reaching that goal? that may or may not make you decide to continue pursuing some goals are of really high value and not giving up, that's just a fact, right. But some may have lesser value or you may want to reconsider because there could be, in the bigger picture, other goals that have emerged that are much higher value on that scale.

Klara:

So kind of what you're referring to is actually what Annie calls the positive expected value. And, going back to a little bit what Dana mentioned, i wonder if we're able to always accurately calculate the positive expected value ourselves, especially given the bias and the sunk cost fallacy. So how do you create that pause and evaluate it accurately? What do you see that positive expected value from the next effort? if you perhaps are on a path and you haven't met the goal, how do you take all the sunk cost out of the equation? Because pretty much the book argues it's we as humans are almost incapable of doing that, close to incapable. And how do you then define of what the expected value is from even staying on the same path versus making a new decision and choosing a new path and goal?

Joe Rogan:

Hmm.

Anna:

I'm not sure, dana, you have a take on that. It's just an processing.

Dana:

I think the challenge here, as I say it, is this conflict between logic and emotion.

Dana:

Right, and for me personally, reflecting on things that I wanted to quit or I hoped to quit but failed to quit, is because the emotional investment in the thing I wanted to quit was extremely high, even though all logic was claiming that you better quit.

Dana:

It's really better on the other side, if you quit, the positive return is high, but you really gotta quit, right? However, the emotion screams that you know like no, no, this is good, this is comfort, quitting is scary, right. So how do you resolve that? right, how do you reconcile the two? How do you get over that emotional reaction? And to me, like thinking like an engineer is to kind of put the process around things and engineer, in a sense, how you approach situations, especially like big things that you really ought to quit, to put the process in place, and that process can include having a committee of close advisors that you trust and you can count on their opinion, having those checkpoints scheduled with yourself and maybe with those advisors, on how you're doing or progressing towards the thing that you're trying to do, and some sort of objective measures of those leading indicators, right, so that you can shore up the logic part of the equation and you try to surround yourself with ammunition so you can battle against the emotion when the emotion tries to rear its head.

Klara:

That was such a good analogy. Yeah, and Annie does talk about it a little bit actually in the book creating a process and really being goal oriented, and even that. I think it's still so hard for people, if you don't hit the goal, to actually still quit So they're still in the emotion versus just the hard decision can be so challenging even, i guess to elaborate for athletes, i can definitely resonate from my athletic journey because that is very black and white. You have quite defined goals and rankings you want to get to, and if you don't reach that ranking within that year doesn't mean that you should quit or do you justify it Oh, this is what didn't work. This is why you sort of continue onward with it as well, and I think that can be also very much translated into a corporate life when it comes to you projects. Yeah.

Dana:

And in a sense you gotta be deterministic about the things that you're experiencing or you want to achieve, right, you can't just let it go with the flow Oh, i'm just going to give it another try, and then another year passes by, another year passes by. I think, having that mindset of approaching objectives, things you want to get done, with a time horizon in mind, right, and building those checkpoints because, yeah, you may not quit the first year, you may not quit the second year, but you know, after three years, this is it right, you're not nailing it. The opportunity or the chance that you may nail it after three years great diminishes and then that will be your indicator to quit. Yeah, i know it's easier said than done, but maybe it's building that muscle, the practice of approaching things, especially the big things, with a little bit more methodology and process. It's not going to be perfect And it's not going to meet every single situation, but just, i guess, approaching it with that you know, deterministic mindset from the get go, that cannot help when things go south, i guess.

Klara:

Yeah, I love it Anna any thoughts?

Anna:

No, I agree. There's not much more to add. It was very well said.

Klara:

One of the additional things that Amy argues is that quitting on time usually feels like quitting too early, and she actually had a really interesting story of Stuart Butterfield, who is an entrepreneur. He actually created Flickr, if you remember, got sold to Yahoo and then he decided to create a video game glitch. That was actually really rising video game and was somewhat successful. But he has seen sort of ahead that they would not be able to get to the penetration and decided to quit what the board members saw as quite early, and I guess this is also seen as usually when we quit, we really wait for the very end of when we can't take things any longer. Example I know there's been like the burnout going on lately, right When people are just worn out and tired and exhausted, falling on their faces As the last resort. I can handle no more and let's say they decided to exit their employment relationship. But how do you kind of choose the quitting on time So you have enough money and energy left to then invest to a better starting position? And so because of that, going back to Stuart Butterfield's story, he decided to quit early enough. He actually had capital to rebrand and started a new product slack that then sold to Salesforce for, i think, close to $30 billion or so. And so how do we again go back to the topic? stop early enough and not quit until all the resources are exhausted, then balance it to where we can repivot a bit sooner in time.

Dana:

I think this is a harder challenge, right? It's having the courage to quit, and not only that, but the foresight to quit early versus late, right? I think for this you need to be like a green belt, black belt, lots of quitting. It's really difficult to, or want to put expectations on one side that they are going to be able to do that continuously, day in and day out. I think it's just a matter of practicing that and building that experience, and that experience in turn becomes intuition, right. That tells you, hey, it's time to quit early, yeah.

Anna:

I'm quite quiet here because I'm not the best advocate for quitting early at all. I'm kind of a black and white scenario, like I go to full length or I don't do it at all When I get comments on this, or have been throughout my life that I always go all the way into the wall till I crash and then that becomes my decision because I have no other option at that point I have a lot to learn. I mean, it can be anything. I want to have the full circle completed. If I've set my goal to something, I want to go through that entire pipeline until I have no more energy and it's reached, Or at the end of the day.

Anna:

I'm not very good at managing my energy so that, oh, I have enough time to kind of just wind down and take it easy. At the end of the day I go, pull all in until the bedtime and then I crash and then I get up and go. So it's like on or off. So I'm not the best to comment, but that's something like Dana says. You have to reinforce it and iterate it over and train Yeah.

Klara:

So the first thing that would challenge you on that, maybe you're the best one, maybe we should ask you the question because actually, when I was thinking about the topic and knowing a little bit about your life, i 100% perceive you that way And I have seen a couple of decisions you have made. Personally, You tend to get into these red zones And so I'm wondering if we were to balance a little bit early, would it actually help us regain energy? or, you know, reposition, when to pause and put the energy into something else? So actually I've created like two sentences. Here is starting kind of new Clara in Austin and trying to figure out what is it I want to invest my time into and what is it that I want to quit. And the time into is so much easier for me to come up with a list. What is it I want to quit? I actually don't have anything there just yet.

Anna:

Yeah, I'm in the same boat with you. Why is it so hard for us? That's a good question. If I would throw up this question, will you ever run out of things to do? Probably not. I think everyone here in this room would say no, i would never be bored.

Anna:

But there are people out there that sometimes just I don't know what to do. I have no idea what to do. And it's so interesting. I find myself oftentimes in those situations like what are you talking about? There's so much on the table, i just don't know what to take off, i guess is how our minds work If you drive yourself to the next thing and the next thing, right, and it keeps going in the background like a process, like yeah, i'm working on this thing now, but then you're finding something, or your brain comes up with something and it adds to it and it's just like a whole smorgasbord with things that you're categorizing based on values and important things you want to do, and it just never ends right. But some other people are more laid back. Maybe, maybe need that ignition. Some just don't. Maybe have that type of drive. I think it's a personality thing too. I don't know. I'm just brainstorming here.

Dana:

Yeah, is that something, anna, that can trigger the thought in my head when you talk about boredom and quitting and reflecting for me on the times I quit jobs, almost 100% the reason was because I'm bored. So boredom is a trigger for me to quit. So maybe that means that each person as an individual will go through your triggers. When you're in an engaged in a situation and that situation is bringing something that's completely negative, that you perceive as negative, right, and it does not reconcile with your values, that's an indicator that is time to quit.

Dana:

So, going back to the concept of leading indicators, you look at, okay, what are the triggers for me? where what I'm going through is not the line with my core values, right, that's a trigger, leading indicator that it's time to quit. Or when the perceived value that I'm getting out of something is no longer there, that's a trigger to quit, right? So maybe, rather than fixating on when we did not quit, maybe a good exercise would be to revisit when do we actually quit And what caused us to quit And do we want to enforce those reasons? those indicators build that into the next thing we're doing, so that we can tell early whether it's time to quit or not.

Anna:

And what you just said here triggered me to think I can. 99% of the times when I quit is because I'm out of energy. If I'm bored, i find something else to fill that bucket with. I keep going. So it's all different, i think, for all of us, and I think it's very worth reflecting on that. What's that trigger or what makes us quit And sometimes, having that realization, like in this example, i run out of energy?

Anna:

well, if I run into a wall and then have to quit, was it meant that I should quit? I don't know. Or should I maybe realize, to Clara's point, when am I entering the red zone And can I make a sounder decision or evaluate this? Is it time to quit or should I quit? Yeah, good perspectives We're thinking about. I think it's all a learning curve here, right, learning about ourselves, how we function, what matters to us, what makes us do certain things, why we do it, and put it into a greater perspective. Is this logical? Is it reasonable? Should we maybe think of it from a different way That can make things healthier for us or better for us in the future? Question of the things we do, why we do it.

Dana:

I see, clara thinking, clara, you've been reflecting on the things that you quit and why you quit.

Klara:

I've always have and I've taken in your perspective and just look at my life. I actually have examples of both of what you mentioned. I've definitely chosen UBAP when I felt the one that I was on wasn't exciting enough, I wasn't learning enough and I wasn't given enough opportunities to progress in the way that I thought I wanted to. And I've also been on Anna's side where really the end of my tennis career there was really no other option but I quit because my body wouldn't allow me to do anything that I actually wanted to do and perform in the way that I wanted to.

Klara:

I mean, I've driven past being able to almost walk. Where I would get up in the morning, I would take me three hours to walk off all my pains and just warm up and start working normally And kind of the end of it is like trying to find what is my balance and that's how I have in a personal life. Weirdly, I typically balance from one side to the other extreme and then I go through the extreme until I find the center that fits. It's kind of weird but that's how I typically made decisions, But maybe taking it out of personal life to work perspective. I'm going to play one more of this short episode that talks about monkeys and pedestals, and this goes a little bit to the business side.

Annie:

Butting up against a monkey that you can't solve. And turning to pedestal building, is a disaster on two fronts. Not only are you continuing to pour resources into something after the world is giving you clear signals that you won't succeed, but those are resources you could be devoting to something better. For every dollar, the authority continues to sink into the bullet train. That's a dollar not available for other big ideas with a greater likelihood of benefiting the taxpayers of California. Monkeys and pedestals boils down to some very good advice Figure out the hard thing first. Try to solve that as quickly as possible. Beware of false progress.

Klara:

I don't know if you've got enough from that clip, but maybe just to introduce it a little bit more, i've given examples of Google X. As for Teller and how they choose to quit Eventually, the concept of monkeys and pedestals is that people typically start building the pedestals when they're creating a project, which is the easier path. It creates false perspective of progress. What you should be doing is figure out how to tame the monkey and make the monkey work, which means what is the hardest thing to solve? Can we actually solve it?

Klara:

Sometimes just thinking about that, if you think about it early enough, you actually are able to even distill whether something is worth pursuing even before you start, or if you don't start on the hard things and they give examples of especially the California train and how much billions have been invested into something that is probably unlikely to ever be constructed and that also falls into the Suncloth. I'll say one of the examples I've had. This goes across the board, but I think this goes even into our corporate world. When do we decide which project to pursue and when do we step and how do we focus on solving the hardest problems first?

Dana:

I think what I'm struggling with is this notion of solving the hardest problem first. I'm not totally certain that I'm on board with that.

Dana:

Is it because you don't know the hardest problem, or Yeah, it goes in with a disperseve notion, like when you're building a new product, you're coming up with a new solution. I think it's more worthwhile focusing on the problem to be solved and making sure you're solving the right problem, like you're starting with the right question And then, if you start from that point of curiosity about the thing that you want to achieve, the problem you want to solve, the product you want to build, and follow that thread through, you're going to figure out what are the hurdles that are going to come and you can tackle them one at a time. Right? It just from a logical, chronological point of view, it kind of doesn't make sense to me, because you would have to presume that you know what the right solution is And to get to that solution, this is the piece that you want to get over. You may get too fixated on that and it may not be the right thing, right?

Klara:

I see what you're saying and I thought about this as well. I think it would be helpful to maybe listen to more parts of it. But eventually what they're saying is you have to be mindful of what are the steps. You create that product or solution, whatever it is, and bring it to life and progress, and be mindful of when to stop. But at the same time the example of the California train they decided to build the railways in areas first that they knew that was easy to build. We already know that railway can be built. That's been in existence for hundreds of years and it ends up profitable industry.

Klara:

But if you start focusing on what is the most complex part because there's this Pacheco Pass that is really complicated and costly that they don't know how much it would actually be to build through this railway. So they instead focused on the feasibility and possibility of building out that portion and start with that. They could perhaps find a bit sooner that this whole railway is invalid, instead of being stuck with the Suncox Felicy and continue to invest So much money the Californian state tax into something that is unlikely to actually ever be constructed. And so you continue in this Suncox Felicy, and I guess it goes into programs as well. So I thought maybe, anna, from your perspective of various different program management experience, how do you look at that concept? Sometimes it's not an option to create, even if some people in the program may disagree with you.

Anna:

So I kind of want to remove my example from the corporate world because sometimes you have higher up decision makers that you just have to take direction from. I mean, i've challenged programs where it was time to quit. Definitely I have right, but sometimes that's not an option. But I would like to comment back onto where Dana began, and I disagree with tackling the biggest problem first or the heaviest task first, because I believe it's important to see for me progress is everything And that first initial progress indicator or confirmation or validation creates additional motivation to continue something maybe even more challenging as step two. So I think go after the lower hanging fruit initially and build on that and seek indication, for are we headed the right way? Not sure if I'm answering your question, but really tackling the progress I'm seeing it from the progress view to pursue and reaching the goal the way it's intended.

Klara:

I've certainly gone that path too. I think it's our human intention or human drive to start solving what we can solve. And I think this is where Annie and, i guess, some of the bigger people who have invented stuff I wonder if the secret is actually really focusing on what is the hardest thing to solve. And if you can solve that, you can solve everything else. And so I also see that part of being able to de-arrest the investments and doing early validation.

Klara:

If I can actually solve this bigger problem at the beginning, then you don't embark on the path of investing time in resources, of trying to create something that you sort of know you can solve is simple, but then you get into this hurdle of the difficult thing that you get stuck at And then you've already invested, let's say, two years on something that you kind of know at the end And oh, this is not a solvable thing. So kind of backtracking if you can't solve the first problem first, maybe you could have invested the two years on a better idea that have higher likelihood and feasibility of actually making it work and being successful.

Anna:

Fail fast basically right, sort of in a way. yeah, i've seen that concept and heard it and I understand it.

Klara:

I think that's something that's worth considering and taking in as a way to try, and maybe that's actually why I keep coming to the book, i feel like it's such a simple concept And I keep going back and really listening to different parts of it because there's so much to take in, and whether it's our personal life or whether it's our professional life, i think you can take it into all contexts, including how governments make decisions And a little bit ties in our last podcast of making decisions under uncertainty and living outside of your comfort zone, because that's what whole life is about. You're never going to be 100% certain what the decision is, but are you going to look at it through the sticking to the status quo? Actually, let me play one more short episode here. I think this one is interesting.

Annie:

Wrapped within all these forces interfering with quitting decisions is that we do not think of sticking with the status quo as an active decision, in the same way that we view switching as one. We are much more concerned with areas of commission than areas of omission or failures to act. We're more wary of causing a bad outcome by acting than letting it happen through inaction. This phenomenon is known as omission commission bias. Switching to something like a new job or a new major or a new relationship or a new business strategy is perceived as a new decision, and an active one. In contrast, we don't really view the choice to stick with the status quo as a decision at all. You've probably heard people, including yourself, when thinking about taking new paths, say something like I don't want to make a decision right now. You likely accepted that as a reasonable thing to say, But once you step back and think about it, you realize that deciding not to change is itself a decision.

Annie:

At any moment when you're pursuing a goal, you are choosing whether to stay on the path you're on or change course. Sticking with the path is as much of a decision as choosing to quit. In fact, the decision about whether to stay or go is, by definition, the same choice. One of the steps to becoming a better quitter is to not accept I'm not ready to make a decision right now as a sentence that makes sense. At every moment of your life you have the choice about what you want to do. You have the choice about whether to stay or whether to go. When you choose to stay, you are also choosing not to go. When you choose to quit, you are also choosing not to continue. It's crucial to start realizing those are the same active decisions.

Dana:

Yeah, so true. When you decide not to do something, you are deciding whether you're lucky or not.

Anna:

Yes, it's true, but it also depends on when the questions are. Maybe if you're getting the same question over a period of time five times, the answer of quitting may come at stage four rather than stage one, right? So I think it's also growing confidence and maturity to take that leap. Maybe you have that in the horizon, but the decision for now is to stay because kind of like a scale weighing four against it, right? Maybe that person just needs more time. The thought is growing on that her or him. Maybe the answer will just be different if you ask the two weeks later. That is highly individual.

Dana:

Maybe, to wrap it up, if there's one thing out of this conversation is don't let life happen to you.

Anna:

Go and make life happen, being the driver's seat to make the most out of the time. You have it's memory. You just don't know how much.

Joe Rogan:

The one thing that discipline definitely does help you with. It helps you get things done, And when you get things done, when you actually do things, you have more success. A big part of success is just not being fucking lazy and just doing it. 90% of it is just showing up. Get there and start working Like you're not going to feel perfect every day. If I only worked out when I felt good, I'd be a fat fuck Because there's a lot of days I don't want to do it. I mean, this is pretty much the same with everybody that actually gets good at something. There's got to be those days you push through. They're probably going to be more numerous than the days you don't, And so the benefit of discipline in my eyes has always been that through discipline I get things done. I'm like the most lazy discipline person I know because I don't want to do it.

Klara:

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