Julia Keller
Appearances
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
That's true. And sports is a great example. I mean, I think sports examples are terrific. I think sports is one of the, some of the great metaphors for life. The example I often use is Scottie Pippen, who is persistently asked about his 1992 playoff game when he quit, when he wouldn't go back on the court after a timeout right at the end of the game, because he was mad to
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
The coach had decided to let another player take the final shot, and Scottie Pippen was mad. And so he sulked and he quit. He quit on his team. That has dogged him and followed him for lo these many years. As great a champion as he is, Michael Jordan's great, great teammate, he still carries that stigma of being a quitter.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I would argue, though, that it's up to each individual in their own heart and mind. Yes, we owe to our teammates, definitely. But sometimes we're better off not being in there if we're not going to be able to perform at a high level. In terms of the Scottie Pippen example, I'd say, you know, maybe he understood that he just really wasn't, you know, now because he was so upset.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And you can argue that maybe it wasn't the most mature thing to be that upset. But again, that's between him and his coaches and his... you know, his members of his team, not for me to judge. I just think that we're so quick to look at quitting as a negative and to not give people the option, the kind of elbow room, the psychological and spiritual elbow room to make another decision.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And we end up being really, really stuck.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Oh, no, no, no. They do all the time. You know, I just saw an interview the other day, Ryan Reynolds being interviewed by David Letterman on that Letterman show that's on Netflix now. And he interviews celebrities for not very long, but I find them very revelatory. And he says to Ryan Reynolds, well, when you came to Hollywood, I guess you didn't have a plan B, huh?
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
You knew you were going to make it. And Ryan Reynolds looks at him and laughs and says, didn't have a plan B. I had a plan B, C, D, E, F. I mean, he was quite ready to change if it hadn't worked out. Now, it didn't work out. But that's one of the points I try to make is that no one's saying it's going to work out.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I mean, there was nothing written on any stone somewhere, you know, that with a sword thrust in it that said Ryan Reynolds is going to be a successful movie star. No one knew that. All he could do was try. But he was ready on a moment's notice to try something else. That's the point he makes to Letterman. He said, oh, no, no, no. I had all kinds of contingency plans.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I think we plan all the time that we've got to do something different. We have to have that kind of flexibility.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Well, let me emphasize again that this is very individual. You did stick with this, but I dare say there have to have been some other things in your life, perhaps careers, that you thought would be the right one for you. You know, you're a talented man. You could have done many different things.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
um there are times when you thought you were going to do something and you had to change in order to get to the point where you could become the host of a very successful podcast that's the point i mean you don't know what all you could do is listen to yourself and your mind and heart and soul said to you nope okay this may be rough in the beginning but this is what i'm this is what i'm made for i can feel this is what i this is what i'm meant to do and when you have that feeling you mike that's your decision and that's really my only point is that it has to be your decision
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Well, again, I disagree and I hope that my book is a refutation of that. I think it's the most practical thing you can do is to consider quitting. And people often do use their families as excuses. And I say that as somebody who has done that in the past too. Well, I have these obligations and I, but your obligation is to yourself and something will be there.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I mean, this is a wide and a varied world and it's filled with ongoing and endless opportunities for us to make our way in that world. And if a situation isn't right from a relationship to a job or a religious belief, I mean, I have a lot of examples too that I deal with where people have changed political parties or religious beliefs that they have to feel.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
We have to feel that we have the freedom to go in another direction, to stop and change. again, it's just too grim otherwise. And again, I just never liked it when I hear people say, well, I would do this or that except for my family. And it's like, no, no, your family is the reason that you do make another decision because you do have those responsibilities.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And you know that you being a whole person, you know, on your way, to a new way of living and a brighter frame of mind, that is your responsibility. So, I mean, I kind of see it from the other way around. And I do think of it as a very practical strategy.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
There is that, you can do that if you wish. But again, I think that's an individual decision. And by no means am I telling anybody what to do. I would never say that one thing is going to work out over all the others. Again, this is just a plea, a kind of an earnest, innocent plea to say, it's okay. If you're thinking of quitting something and you're hearing people say, don't do it.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And you're like me in graduate school, that terrible night when I decided I just couldn't make it another moment. I mean, I was 19 years old and I truly was at a, Was that a terrible point, kind of a psychological waterloo? I mean, I don't know what would have happened to me if I'd stayed. I had to get out of there. And we all know that feeling. Everybody knows that feeling.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Job, relationship, way of thinking. So sometimes it's a philosophy toward life when you realize, I just, I can't be that way anymore.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Very, very, very few people. ever deeply regretted something that they gave up on or quit and looked back on and said, oh, if I just hadn't done that, far, far more often was, I so wish I'd quit earlier. It was the wrong thing to do. I wasted 10 years of my life because I was afraid of... being involved in that particular thing, whatever it might have been, a job or a person or a political party.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
So I do take your point, but there's something you said early on in your question when you said of how people feel about it. And that's ultimately what I'm getting at. It's how you feel about it. And it doesn't matter what I think or you think or any of these fancy neuroscientists who were kind enough to explain their work to me at great length.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
It doesn't matter what any of them think or what anybody thinks really. It's how you feel and only you know. At the end of the day, it's that mind and heart and soul that I speak of. Because truly, I think our work and the way we spend our time is not just a matter of getting money or keeping a roof over our heads or even taking care of our families.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
It's sort of our obligation as, you know, it's a soul deep obligation. It's what we do, how we spend our time. Do we feel as if we have used our gifts and talents to their fullest ability? And if you're in the wrong place and you're stuck in the wrong place, then the answer would be no.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
But if you're able to change and able to quit things that aren't working and go to something that is working better, then the answer would be yes.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Oh, hi there, Mike. So happy to be here.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I believe deep in my soul that everything we've always believed about quitting is wrong. And all the good things we've believed about grit and perseverance is also wrong. That, in effect, we've been sold a bill of goods. That quitting, and modern neuroscience bears me out on this,
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
is think i'd like to think of it as aerobics for your brain quitting is when we stop one direction and go in another it's a willingness to be flexible and there's a cognitive flexibility involved and so people will say to me well if you're right and grit and perseverance aren't all they're cracked up to be and quitting can be a good thing then how come for all these hundreds of years we've been told the opposite you know the words where do you get off why are you so smart and what i usually reply is we can trace the history of the grit and perseverance idea
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I often say that grit is a con. It's been sold to us like cars or cornflakes or smartphones. And there's a reason why we're told that everything is in our own hands and it's all up to us because it isn't.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And once we accept that and we realize that we often have to change course because bad things just happen to us, unexpected things happen to us, we become much freer, less judgmental of other people and less judgmental of ourselves, certainly. And we're able to live life a little freer, a little happier.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Well, the distinction you're making there is very important. In fact, that's one of the things that I had to really look at is say you're a parent and your kid comes to you and says, yeah, I want to quit the basketball team. I just don't want to do it. And you're a parent and you realize that, well, I think probably this kid of mine would rather sit home watching YouTube videos.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
That kind of quitting is not what I mean. I don't mean the quitting as you say, just kind of like, well, I'm just tired of it. And a lot of the parents that I interviewed in the course of just kind of collecting my thoughts about why I think quitting can be a positive would say that that then initiated another conversation. They say, OK, why do you want to quit?
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And if it is, as you mentioned a moment ago, just like, oh, I'm just tired of it. Come on. I'd rather sit at home, you know, box of Cheetos. Who wouldn't? That's not what I mean. What I mean is a, what I call precision quitting, strategic quitting.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And that can be whether you're, you know, 14 years old and you want to quit the soccer team or whether you're 44 and you are very stale in your job and you think you're looking for another challenge. It's really along the same thing. It's, and at each time it requires our brain to do something quite specific and quite important.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
And that's the neuroscience of this, I think is maybe where the distinction lies as well. that we know that animals in the wild will quit if a certain path is not getting them where they want to go. And yet we don't. Often we stick too long with something. And it's not a matter of just lassitude or laziness. It's a matter, I think, of fear.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I believe that everything we've always believed about quitting is wrong, and all the good things we've believed about grit and perseverance is also wrong. That quitting, and modern neuroscience bears me out on this, quitting is when we stop one direction and go in another.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I know there's certain things that I haven't quit that I know I should have. And I'd like to say, well, because I just didn't want to do it. Often it's fear.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
There is some of that, but I will tell you that in probably 150, 200 interviews, many, many, many interviews that I did, the vast, vast, vast majority of people, when I asked them to sort of tell me their quitting history, and everybody has a quitting story. That's something I should have mentioned at the outset. Everybody has a quitting story, and they love to tell it.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I know when I've been talking about the book, Hither and Yon, that's what comes out. people are much, much, much more likely to regret the things that they didn't quit, but they should have, than to regret the things they did quit. Obviously, there are some of the latter. There are times when we think, ah, I should have stayed with that job, wasn't so bad, or
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I wish I'd stayed a little longer in that relationship, maybe give it another try. But the vast majority of people, it's completely the opposite. It's, I wish I hadn't stayed so long. I was afraid and that's why I stayed. And again, grit and resilience sometimes work okay. They're fine. It's not always true. There's no one formula that's gonna work for everybody or no one life strategy.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
But my argument is that we need to include quitting and giving up and all these other words that have such a pejorative ring to them and sounds so negative. We need to put those into the toolbox. They need to be looked upon not as a moral failing and not as the absolute last refuge of the loser, but as another tool, another way to go about this very complicated thing called life.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Well, but you can, I would argue. I have a thing I call the quasi-quit. Now, this is not the same as quiet quitting, which came out about a year ago and to me sounds ridiculous. It's just thievery. It means not working very hard at your job. What I call the quasi-quit suggests that quitting doesn't have to be an on-off switch. I don't think it has to be a final thing.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I think of it as more of a rheostat dial. You can quit in increments. You can quit gradually. You can dial it up and dial it down. You can change the way you're doing something instead of the thing that you're doing. And I use a lot of athletes as an example. I mentioned Tiger Woods, I think is a great example, who is a great champion, a wonderful champion, but time has passed.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
He's gone through some grievous physical injuries and some tumultuous emotional times. He has had to change what he thinks of as victory. He's not a quitter by any means, but in another sense, he is a quitter because he's had to quit a way of looking at the game of golf And looking at only a first place finish is the only acceptable outcome. And to say, you know what?
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I showed up, I competed, I did my best. So quitting, I would argue, is not final. In fact, it's the opposite of final. You can quit a thousand times and make minor changes or one big major change. But again, it needs to always be in that toolbox and to always consider it and to realize if you quit, you're not a loser, you're not a bum, you're not a washout, you're not a terrible person.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
You're a human being and you're making another decision.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Well, I suppose that's between you and your friends and your therapist and whoever. I mean, but again, I think when we put this moral judgment upon it is what I'm is what I'm, I guess, most upset about when I looked at quitting. You know, I always talk about when I was, I was in grad school, I was 19 years old, I'd graduated from college early. I was, it was terrible.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
I'd been about a month in grad school and it was very clear to me, this was terrible, this was awful. I had to get out of there, but I was so afraid of being called a quitter. I mean, it clutched at my guts, you know, the idea of being a quitter. Cause you know, I'd been, I loved sports and we all know what we call somebody who,
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
leaves before the game is over we call them a quitter and it's a taunt it's a mean jeer but this is when i first began to question this idea of quitting as being so bad when your body and your mind are telling you you need to be somewhere else why do we resist and one of the reasons i do is i as i suggest and as my research and my interviews uh kind of made clear to me was that
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Quitting is something that serves people in power. It serves the people who have control in this world. Because if you look at quitting as a negative, you suggest that all power is in your own hands and that the people who have been successful in life have gotten there because they didn't quit. They were noble. They were intrepid. They were dedicated. They stayed the course.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Often they were just lucky.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Well, but ask yourself, Mike, why does the word quitting make you feel that? Why do you think I would never call Tiger Woods a quitter? I know what you mean. It was a hard sentence to write when I said Tiger Woods is a quitter. But then I go on to explain, of course, that quitting We think of quitting in a pejorative way, a negative way, and we've been trained to do that.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
The word self-help was coined in the middle of the 19th century by a man named Samuel Smiles, who wrote a book called Self-Help with illustrations of character and conduct. And that's when this idea first got going that quitting is bad, changing course is bad, changing how you do something is bad.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
You have to stick with something that you begin and never quit and never give up or you're a bad person. There was definitely a moral dimension attached to it.
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
and again i think that doesn't serve us as human beings very well because we sometimes we need to quit things relationships don't work out like women particularly have been not served well by this idea of quitting as being a negative they're told oh come on just stick with it stick with a little longer in terms of relationships jobs um often quitting is the right thing to do and we don't do it because we're afraid of that term quitter just just as you were saying it kind of made you you know shudder a little bit and recoil to think of tiger woods a great champion like a tiger woods being a quitter
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
The other example I give is Simone Biles when she withdrew from the finals of the Tokyo Olympics. Oh, the terrible, terrible name she was called and the terrible negativity was thrown at her. It was awful. Now, she quit because she wanted to continue to fight another day. She knew it wasn't right. She wasn't in the right frame of mind or in the right
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
right body position to do this incredibly perilous job that she needs to do as an elite gymnast. Now she's a magnificent champion, just as Tiger Woods is. And I would maintain that these great champions understand when to quit and when to give up. And I take your point that those are,
Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
that those are maybe kind of harsh sounding words because they're words that we have attached all of this negativity to. And it makes it very hard to change course. But suppose we sucked all that negativity away from those words. Suppose we thought of quitting as a positive.