Quit

The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

By: Annie Duke

Narrated by: Annie Duke

Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of Thinking in Bets comes a toolkit for mastering the skill of quitting to achieve greater success.

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.

©2022 Annie Duke (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“This brilliant and entertaining book documents a major flaw in human actions and decisions: the bias against quitting. I learned a lot from its compelling tales of failures and sound recommendations. You will too.”—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in economics and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Engrossing, important, and grounded in science, Quit is a gem that will allow you to navigate the world more effectively.”—Katy Milkman, bestselling author of How to Change

“A game-changing book of strategy from a world-class thinker on risk and decision-making.”—Shane Parrish, host of The Knowledge Project podcast

So many relatable Examples of life

Annie, did such a great job in the narration, keeping me engaged in both Story line and narration throughout the book.
It gave me a brand new perspective on quitting and being able to walk away with pride and with the knowledge why it's best to do it. So many great stories on how it relates to both personal and business life.

get to good decisions faster and with less stigma

As a career coach this book is a must-read for myself and to assist others, and will be a valuable read for anyone who values making good decisions in life at all.
Narrator's voice is pleasant and the book isn't too long (little unnecessary dwindling). Highly recommended.

Great

Worth your time.
Concise and interesting.
One of those books that can change perspective just upon reading.

One of the best books on decision making out there.

This book is incredibly well thought out. The use cases are all very interesting to back core decision making arguments. Those use cases merge together for a central point that really challenges you to approach decisions better. So happy that I found this book.

Useful book for everyone!

Annie Duke gives outstanding advice about the steps we need to take and the process we should follow toward evaluating our goals throughout life. She is a very good communicator and organized with her story, using many real life examples. I came away from this book much more knowledgeable about our innate biases and how to recognize them for success.

read this is you have ever felt bad about quitting

Honestly, this was a unique book compared to all the pop psychology and self help out there. Instead of taking the common "winners never quit" approach, the author explain many cases when quitting is the ultimate better decision. She also goes over a number of biases which often make us think we need to stick to what we've started when doing so is detrimental.

Great book and a necessary skill to learn

Knowing when to stop doing what you have been doing is an important skill and the authors’ expertise in this area is obvious. Anyone working in Agile will get allot of value reading or listening to this book

An absolute must read for everyone.

Loved everything about this book. We all have a ton of decisions we make each and every day and establishing life skills surrounding quitting is essential for all of us. Definitely life changing content. I have recommended it to all of my friends. The performance of this book was also great and so was the layout of the chapters. I really appreciated each of the summaries given at the end of each to help you to retain the content.

wish I read this a long time ago

Should be required reading in highschool but better late to read than never. I'll be adding it to my re-read list for sure.

Great research! Great stories! Great voice!

This was so good with so many interesting stories that I think I’ll have to listen again.
This is a worthy subject told in an engaging manner. Valuable topic.