Something You Should Know
When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice
Sat, 26 Apr 2025
What is beginner’s luck? After all, it has a name so it must happen often enough to be a thing. But could it just be an odd and occasional coincidence or is there really something to it? We begin this episode with a look at the phenomenon of beginner’s luck and why it may not be luck at all. Source: Sian Beilock author of Choke (https://amzn.to/3Nj53uE) Quitting? You can’t quit! Quitting is for losers – you should finish what you start. That’s the message many of us have playing in our head when it comes to the thought of quitting. But hang on a second! In some cases, quitting may very well be the best option while persevering may be a really dumb idea. That is something my guest Julia Keller firmly believes. Julia is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, teacher and author of the book, Quitting: A Life Strategy: The Myth of Perseverance―and How the New Science of Giving Up Can Set You Free (https://amzn.to/41LAWR9) There is something great about being around water. That’s why we like to go the beach or to rivers and lakes and why waterfront property is typically so expensive. Humans are naturally drawn to water. But why? What is the connection between people and being near bodies of water? You are about to discover the answer to this from my guest Wallace J. Nichols, PhD. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy in Monterey, a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and author of the book, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do (https://amzn.to/3NfkZy8) How is your love life? There are some simple things you can do outside the bedroom that can make you more appealing to your partner inside the bedroom and beyond. Listen as I share these easy suggestions can have a big impact. Source: Lou Paget author of The Great Lover Playbook (https://amzn.to/3Ni0uke) PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off TIMELINE: Get 10% off your order of Mitopure! Go to https://Timeline.com/SOMETHING INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is beginner's luck and is it really luck?
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.
Then, some simple ways to improve your love life that happen outside the bedroom. And, why are humans so attracted to water? Beaches, lakes, rivers, streams. We like to be near water.
Water helps us to relax. It helps us to be more creative. It helps to connect us to each other. It connects us to ourselves. And it is the basis of all life. We've all experienced it, but it's nice to tag it.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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something you should know fascinating intel the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carruthers hi and welcome to another episode of something you should know something i've always wondered about and perhaps you have too is beginner's luck
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Chapter 2: Why might quitting be the best life strategy?
Maybe you've experienced it or witnessed it. Is beginner's luck a real thing, I wonder? Well, apparently it is, but actually luck doesn't have a lot to do with it. What we chalk up to beginner's luck actually has two parts to it. First of all, beginners or novices often fail. Don't perform well on a first attempt. That's no surprise. So when a beginner does get lucky...
Every once in a while, surprise, we notice it, and we respond to a surprise more than we do to the predictable. So, we tend to think that it happens more often than it does. It doesn't really happen that often. The other all-important aspect to beginner's luck is pressure. People who are experts or who are at the top of their game are expected to succeed.
They feel the pressure, and performing under pressure is always more of a challenge. Beginners, on the other hand, usually don't care how they perform on a first attempt, so the pressure's off. A novice is more likely to take a risk. that just might pay off. And every once in a while, it does. And that is something you should know.
There is something about quitting, walking away from something, almost anything. Quitting is for losers. At least that's the way many of us think. Winners never quit, quitters never win. You don't quit, you finish what you start. Quitting is bad, perseverance is good. Well, maybe we should re-examine that assumption that quitting is such a bad thing. Maybe sometimes quitting is the best strategy.
That's what Julia Keller is here to discuss. Julia is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and playwright, and she is author of a book called Quitting, A Life Strategy. Hi, Julia. Welcome to Something You Should Know.
Oh, hi there, Mike. So happy to be here.
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Chapter 3: How does neuroscience explain the benefits of quitting?
So go ahead and make your case for quitting because, as I said, most people look at quitting as something you don't do, that that's not a good thing. So why is it and when is it a good thing?
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,
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
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.
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.
So I understand the changing course that sometimes life circumstances dictate that you have to change course. And in order to change course, you may have to quit something in order to move to something else. OK, I get that. But but there's another kind of quitting that's not that.
That's the I just don't want to do this anymore kind of quitting, which feels more like just, you know, the easy way, the chicken way out.
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.
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?
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Chapter 4: What is precision quitting and how does it differ from giving up?
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.
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.
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.
To which I can imagine people listening to this saying, yes, but there I can think of, and I include myself in this list, I have persevered and stuck it out with things that probably I really didn't want to, and I'm so glad I did.
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.
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
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.
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.
Well, by its nature, quitting is fairly final. And so often it might be better, it would seem, to stick it out a little longer. Because once you're quit, you quit. You can't quit a job and then go two weeks later, oh, boy, you know, I made a mistake. I'm coming back. Because you're not coming back. You quit.
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Chapter 5: Can quitting be flexible and non-final?
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?
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.
You're a human being and you're making another decision.
Well, doesn't it depend on why you're quitting?
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.
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,
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
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Chapter 6: How do famous athletes like Tiger Woods and Simone Biles illustrate quitting?
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.
Often they were just lucky.
We're talking about quitting, and my guest is Julia Keller. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the book Quitting, A Life Strategy.
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So, Julia, as I listen to you talk, it almost seems like quitting is the wrong word. Because as you describe Tiger Woods, I mean, I would never describe him as a quitter, but you say he's a quitter, but I would never use that word. He adapted from his life circumstance how he plays the game, but... quitting wouldn't be one of the words I'd use to describe him.
It's like it's the wrong word for what you're talking about almost.
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Chapter 7: When does quitting affect others and how should we consider team dynamics?
But sometimes your quitting affects other people. If you're a member of a team and you quit the team and the team suffers, well, now a lot of people are taking it on the chin because you quit.
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
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.
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.
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.
And we end up being really, really stuck.
Because your book is quitting a strategy. And to me, you know, a strategy is like a plan. And I don't think anybody goes into anything with the strategy, the plan to quit it. Why would you do it if you're planning to quit?
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?
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.
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Chapter 8: Is quitting always practical, and how can people overcome the fear of quitting?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I remember my dad telling me early on in my career that, you know, if you ever want to quit a job, it's always better To line something else first because you look more attractive if you are employed than if you're unemployed. So quit all you want, but get something lined up first.
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.
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.
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.
Well, as you say, it's very individual whether you decide to quit or whether you decide to persevere. But are there any numbers in the research about, you know, is quitting a better strategy? Just anything other than these are anecdotal stories and you quit and it worked out for you and you didn't quit and it worked out for you?
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