Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

From the bestselling 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.

Annie Duke is a bestselling author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. Her books Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts and Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away are both national bestsellers. As a former professional poker player, Annie won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, completing her PhD in 2023. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education.