You Don't Need to Quit, You Can Push Through It

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I worry sometimes that I cast my own decisions in that kind of light. A lot of what we do as parents is to get us to push through pain because often, not always, but often, great rewards come from that. It's hard for human beings to anticipate those rewards sometimes, especially when we're young. The problem is that we think that applies to 30-year-olds.

Annie Duke is angry that quitting gets such a bad rap. Instead of our relentless focus on grit and "going for it," the former professional poker player, decision strategist, and author of Quit wants us to recognize the costs associated with sticking to a losing outcome. Listen as she explains to EconTalk host Russ Roberts how society's conflation of grit with character has made quitting unnecessarily hard, and why our desire for certainty harms our decision-making ability. Additional topics include the flawed mental accounting that makes us confuse wins for losses, what we can learn from ants, and the tragic story of how the refusal to quit cost 16 lives one terrible night at the top of Mt. Everest.