Annie Duke on The Power of Quitting
b'Annie Duke is the bestselling author of Thinking in Bets and How to Decide. Her new book, Quit, is going to be the subject of a lot of our conversation today. Annie is a corporate speaker and consultant in the decision-making space. She\\u2019s also a former professional poker player, where she won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game in 2012. We\\u2019ll talk about all of the quitting that Annie has done in her life, and a lot of the origins of this book come from learning poker and learning how important it is to know \\u201cwhen to fold \\u2018em.\\u201d She\\u2019s also the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission it is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skill education. At her core, Annie really loves research, education, and not just learning, but also teaching.\\n\\xa0\\nAnnie had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:\\n\\u201cI think sabbaticals are actually really helpful\\u201d (13:35).\\n\\u201cIt\\u2019s very hard to make decisions when you\\u2019re in it, when you\\u2019re actually facing down the decision\\u201d (13:45).\\n\\u201cWe equate quitting with giving up or failing\\u201d (14:45).\\n\\u201cThat\\u2019s the hardest thing to quit. \\u2018If I quit this, then who am I?\\u2019\\u201d (16:15).\\n\\u201cWhen we\\u2019re actually engaged in something, when we\\u2019re pursuing a particular goal, it\\u2019s very hard for us to see very clearly what the other opportunities are that might be available to us\\u201d (16:55).\\n\\u201cWe tend not to do a lot of reevaluation of why we\\u2019re doing what we\\u2019re doing or whether we really enjoy it or whether it aligns with our values when we\\u2019re in it once we\\u2019ve already started it\\u201d (17:15).\\n\\u201cThe pandemic involuntarily created sabbaticals for people\\u201d (18:40).\\n\\u201cPivoting is quitting\\u201d (19:10).\\n\\u201cThe word \\u2018quit\\u2019 is so odious to us that we really like to bubble wrap it\\u201d (19:35).\\n\\u201cThe definition of quit is \\u2018stopping something that you have started\\u2019\\u201d (20:00).\\n\\u201cIt\\u2019s a good thing to quit things when you discover that they\\u2019re not working for you anymore\\u201d (20:40).\\n\\u201cJust like any decision you make, [quitting] is not permanent\\u201d (21:20).\\n\\u201cIf you discover something that you do isn\\u2019t working, why are you afraid to say that you\\u2019re quitting?\\u201d (23:00).\\n\\u201cThe fear of regret\\u2026 stops us from quitting\\u201d (26:00).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019ve quit a lot of stuff, but I\\u2019m also very gritty\\u201d (31:45).\\n\\u201cI stopped tying my identity so closely to what I did\\u201d (33:00).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019ve spent my whole life thinking about decision making under uncertainty. It\\u2019s the thing I\\u2019m most curious about\\u201d (34:00).\\n\\u201cFamous women are treated different than famous men\\u201d (41:45).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019m very good at quitting things that I\\u2019ve written in a lot better way than I was when I wrote [my first book]\\u201d (1:00:25).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019ve really embraced the power of narrative to bring to life academic concepts\\u201d (1:00:40).\\n\\u201cTalks are just teaching. Consulting is teaching\\u201d (1:03:45).\\n\\u201cI come to life when I\\u2019m teaching people\\u201d (1:04:00).\\n\\u201cI often discover through teaching that I\\u2019m totally full of sh*t, which is the best thing ever\\u201d (1:04:30).\\n\\u201cI wish that idea of don\\u2019t have a plan B would go away\\u201d (1:20:45).\\n\\xa0\\nAdditionally, for all of the information you need on Annie, including links to her books and newsletter, you can check out her website here.\\nThank you so much to Annie for coming on the podcast!\\nI wrote a book called \\u201cShift Your Mind\\u201d that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter:\\xa0@brianlevenson\\xa0or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.\\nThanks for listening.'