Win A Copy Of “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away” By Annie Duke
Quitting is hard! But sometimes it’s the best move
Recently I saw Annie Duke, a psychologist and former professional poker player who focuses on decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, give a talk about her book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. It was really, really good — simply put, Duke knows a lot about a lot. (Also, I had never heard of monkeys and pedestals, which she mentioned, but I love it!)
I’m very excited to read her book, which hasn’t arrived yet. In the meantime, the publisher, Portfolio, has generously offered to give away three print copies to U.S.-based subscribers of mine. (No Kindle, unfortunately.)
Here’s the blurb:
Business leaders, with millions of dollars down the drain, struggle to abandon a new app or product that just isn’t working. Governments, caught in a hopeless conflict, believe that the next tactic will finally be the one that wins the war. And in our own lives, we persist in relationships or careers that no longer serve us. Why? According to Annie Duke, in the face of tough decisions, we’re terrible quitters. And that is significantly holding us back.
In Quit, Duke teaches you how to get good at quitting. Drawing on stories from elite athletes like Mount Everest climbers, founders of leading companies like Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, and top entertainers like Dave Chappelle, Duke explains why quitting is integral to success, as well as strategies for determining when to hold em, and when to fold em, that will save you time, energy, and money. You’ll learn:
How the paradox of quitting influences decision making: If you quit on time, you will feel you quit early
What forces work against good quitting behavior, such as escalation commitment, desire for certainty, and status quo bias
How to think in expected value in order to make better decisions, as well as other best practices, such as increasing flexibility in goal-setting, establishing “quitting contracts,” anticipating optionality, and conducting premortems and backcasts
Whether you’re facing a make-or-break business decision or life-altering personal choice, mastering the skill of quitting will help you make the best next move.
Fill this out if you want to enter the contest. You have to be at least a free subscriber, and I’ll accept any entries I get by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, December 20, East Coast time. As always, one copy is reserved for a premium subscriber, so now’s as good a time as any to join up.
Good luck!
I want to win a copy of “Quit: My Twitter Odyssey” by Jesse Singal
I knew a guy who was a startup/VC graybeard and he once told me “bad startups make a handful of mistakes, good startups make a lot” what he meant was leadership at bad startups usually has irrational conviction into an idea despite overwhelming evidence that it doesn’t work. They waste a ton of money and time perusing the bad idea. A couple of those mistakes bankrupts the company. Good leaders try a lot of things, and are very quick to abandon it once data clearly indicates it’s not working. They get to try a lot more ideas this way and thus more likely to strike gold