PEr Chronicles: Grit vs Quit

A.I. has been making waves in the world of poker and has become one of the most popular tools used by players to gain an edge over their opponents. According to one study, more than 1 in 5 poker experts are reportedly using ChatGPT to win hands in online poker games.

I fell in love with poker in my twenties. Over a course of a hand, I could be involved in up to 20 decisions. And each hand ends with a concrete result: I win money or I lose money. The result of each hand provides immediate feedback on how my decisions are faring.

I wasn’t an always-rational, emotion-free decision-maker. I made (and make) plenty of mistakes. Mistakes, emotions, losing – those things are inevitable because we are human.

This is not an article about poker strategy or gambling. It is, however, about things poker taught me about learning and life. Life is poker, not chess.

Take a moment to recall your best decision in the last year. Now take a moment to imagine your worst decision. Persistence is not always the best decision.

The same grit that helped Ali become a great champion became his undoing when it drove him to ignore signs that were obvious to anyone on the outside looking in that he should quit.

That’s the funny thing about grit. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile.

The trick is in figuring out the difference.

The advice of legendarily successful people is often the same message: stick to things and you will succeed. All the famous people have united behind variations of the expression, “quitters never win, and winners never quit.”

By definition, anybody who has succeeded at something has stuck with it. But that doesn’t mean that the inverse is true, that if you stick to something, you will succeed at it.

If you are a bad singer, it doesn’t matter how long you stick with it. You’re not going to be Adele. If you are 50 years old and set your sights on becoming an Olympic gymnast, no amount of grit or effort will make it possible for you to succeed.

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.

If someone calls you a quitter, would you ever consider it a compliment? The answer is obvious.? Quitting means failing, losing. Quitting shows a lack of character (except of course it involves giving up something bad like drugs or an abusive relationship). We consider them weak, unreliable.

The English language favours grit, describing those who persevere with positive term like can-do, resolute, daring, gutsy. Or having tenacity.

There are lots of circumstances in which quitting is the right choice, particularly when your kidneys are failing. Or you’re in a dead-end job.

Why is the word given the Voldemort treatment (The-Word-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named)?

I hope that as a result of reading this article, you will realise why quitting can become a skill you can develop and use to enrich your life.

To be clear, there are lots of hard things that are absolutely worth sticking to, and resilience and grit are going to help you do that. Success is not achieved by quitting things just because they are hard. But success is also not achieved by sticking to hard things that are not worthwhile.

The trick is in figuring out when to persevere and when to walk away.