Prince's Diamonds & Pearls #168

When Should I Quit?

Sometimes it’s obvious on when it’s time to quit. If you’re trying to become wealthy by playing the lottery every week, persistence will not help you. Neither will positive thinking, prayers, or building a vision board will aid you. The only secret to winning the lottery is to quit playing it.

You must quit on some things, so you are freed to pursue other things, or even just be available for other things as they show up.

Fashion Designer, Vera Wang, quit on her dream and career as a figure skater. What a quitter right? Yet, I did say Vera Wang and you knew her name, right?

1st black female Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, changed her piano major during her sophomore year in college. Although winning a couple of piano competitions in the past, she met 12-year-olds at the Aspen Music Festival and School who could play from sight what took her a full year to learn. She then realized that there was a world of talent that she would never match and that she was not headed to play at Carnegie Hall.

Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams had a company called Odeo, a podcasting platform. As soon as they heard that Apple came out with iTunes, they quit Odeo. Being freed up, the next thing that they decided to start was called Twitter which is valued at more than $22 billion. We wouldn’t even know or care who Jack or Evan were had they not been quitters.

William Wrigley Jr. had a soap and baking powder sales business in the 1890’s. He would give away free chewing gum with each purchase. The gum proved to be more popular than his main product, so he quit the soap business to start manufacturing gum. Today, Wrigley chewing gum is one of the most recognizable brands in American history and to this day generates billions of dollars in revenue annually.

These individuals like so many other successful people didn’t quit the right things, but they did quit a lot of the wrong things! We already know that it takes hard work to become successful. This is merely half the story. It also takes insight to pick the right things to stick with and the insight to pick the wrongs things that we need to quit on and the courage to actually do it.

If you’re thinking about quitting, use these 5 questions as your litmus test:

1.) Are you doing what you are doing because you think that is what you “should” do?

Is it what your parents, peer group, or society ideals expect of you? Are you really doing what you’re doing for you, or are you just living up to an imprinting or programming projected upon you?

2.) Are you no longer loving what you are doing, AT ALL?

The day-to-day grind is exhausting and sometimes debilitating, but do you still have a fire for it? If you don’t and can’t regenerate it, quit!

“Life is too short to spend it unhappily”, said the co-founder and quitter of Microsoft, Paul Allen.

When he quit on Microsoft in 1982 due to complications from lymphoma, quitting probably cost him $60 billion. However, it gave him 36 more years of life. And the $20 billion that he had remaining was still enough to buy happiness, mega yachts, the Seattle Seahawks, and a ton of contributions through his philanthropy.

3.) Is it just not working?

Whether its investors don’t want to invest, employees don’t want to join, or customers don’t want to buy, pay attention to the clues! It doesn’t matter how much you love it or how much persistence you throw at it, sometimes it’s just not a good idea, worthy business, promising initiative, or validated change. You need to quit.

4.) Are you just chasing sunk cost?

Are you throwing good money at money already lost? Are you trying to salvage a minor win to save face? This is a bad idea and a flag that it’s time to quit. You want to marry the result, and not the business. If the business isn’t producing the result, then fire the business.

5.) Is it fear?

Is it fear of what people will think? Is it fear of damage to your reputation as a winner? Is it fear or bruises to your ego? There is no shame in surrender. In fact, surrender opens you up to new possibilities and a fresh start. It often takes the closing of one door to create the opportunity to step forward and open another.

Is there something that you need to quit, and quit quickly? What is it? What has been preventing you from quitting? When will you quit it? What will take place of what you are quitting? Share in the comments below?

References: Turning a Taboo into Triumph by Darren Hardy

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