0:18

Hello,

0:18

everybody. Welcome to this episode

0:21

of What's Next live

0:24

with an amazing guest. I'm super thrilled

0:26

to have Annie Duke join us today for

0:28

those of you who don't know who she is.

0:30

Annie was a world champion poker

0:33

player and has won over four

0:35

million dollars over her career,

0:37

but she retired about

0:39

a decade ago, which I feel like

0:42

might be was a good decision. we're gonna talk

0:44

about that.

0:45

But

0:46

she is also an author. She's got a new

0:48

book out called Quit by

0:50

any Duke and I'm just thrilled

0:52

to have her because I've been chasing her to

0:54

be on this show for about a year and I needed her

0:56

book to come out. So welcome to the

0:58

show Annie. Well, thank you for having

1:00

me. I'm excited. Alright.

1:02

Well, I always start my sessions with something

1:05

my interviews with something called bullish and bearish. We

1:07

usually do it on the voice only, but I'm gonna do

1:09

it at this point today. Are you ready? Okay.

1:11

No. You don't know. Let's see. Alright.

1:13

So bullish your for it, bear your

1:15

against it. Three quick questions.

1:17

Are you ready? I'm

1:19

ready. Alright. The first one.

1:21

Robot tennis players,

1:24

bullish or bearish.

1:25

Oh, bearish. Okay. I'm

1:28

just playing tennis two weeks ago. That's

1:30

my weekend. Alright.

1:34

I didn't know about the wrist, but I did know you play

1:36

tennis. Alright. k. Next one,

1:38

teaching kids poker

1:40

in school.

1:42

Out bullish. Yes.

1:44

I mean, it teaches prob it teaches probabilistic

1:47

thinking, which I think

1:49

our society needs a lot more of.

1:52

Alright. Fair enough. And the next,

1:54

Quitting is a superpower in

1:57

life. Oh, completely bullish.

1:59

Well, I told you they had a

2:02

softball. That was a softball. That was a softball.

2:04

But, you know, let's let's begin with

2:07

you making the decision

2:10

to walk away from a

2:12

career which, you know, from a winning's

2:14

perspective, right, had been really good too. You're one of the

2:16

very few women who can say they've won a world

2:18

series of poker bracelet. you know,

2:20

there's lots of good things

2:23

on that side. But I'm guessing one day

2:25

when you made the decision, there

2:27

was a whole series of things that led up to

2:29

that for you to leave

2:31

the world of poker. What what was that

2:33

process? Well,

2:35

so, I mean, look, I I wanna

2:37

say that, like, like most things that

2:39

people quit, I

2:40

feel like I did it too late.

2:42

So once I quit, I

2:44

sort of looked back and said I should have done that a

2:46

lot earlier. So there there were

2:48

a few things. I think there were some pretty early signals

2:51

for me. At about eight years into

2:53

when I was playing poker, I got asked to

2:55

give a talk.

2:56

to

2:59

in finance to some options traders about

3:01

how poker might inform their thinking about risk.

3:03

I had a background in cognitive science, so

3:05

I had

3:06

decided not to become an academic.

3:08

I quit academia to become a poker player

3:10

after doing five years worth of PhD work

3:13

at UPenn. So I came

3:15

in, you know, to them actually about how

3:17

cognitive science and poker could have this very interesting

3:19

conversation with each other about

3:21

decision making under uncertainty. which

3:23

was super fun and I kind of remembered how much

3:25

I liked teaching. And then over the course of the next

3:28

decade, I found that I was spending much

3:30

more time on the

3:31

speaking kind

3:33

of consulting side of the world

3:35

and less time in poker, which was a

3:37

pretty good signal that maybe I was happier

3:40

doing a different thing than what I

3:42

was doing. But then also, there was

3:44

a there were a lot of things about the game that changed.

3:46

So when I first started playing, it wasn't on television,

3:48

it wasn't on the Internet, it

3:51

was small. A

3:53

lot of community, and then the game really exploded,

3:56

which was really great for the poker economy, but

3:58

not as great for that feeling of

3:59

community.

4:01

And I think that that was something that I really need

4:03

in my work is is to feel that sense

4:05

of community. And then the

4:07

the economy and poker also imploded.

4:09

which created, you know,

4:11

when things are really booming. I mean, I think

4:13

you can see this in crypto right now. Like, you

4:15

have all these people who had

4:17

all this money kind of like on paper

4:19

and then the economy on them kind of

4:22

implodes. And it's

4:24

not a fun time to be in communities

4:26

like that for because obviously people are

4:28

kind of bad and miserable, and that

4:31

means that you don't get to see the a plus version

4:33

of people in those moments. And

4:35

I think it was just like tying for me

4:37

to leave. And I

4:40

had something to leave too, which made

4:42

it a lot easier for me

4:44

because I had a whole other career happening

4:47

that I could go and spend

4:49

my all my focus on? Well, you

4:51

had said something really quickly as

4:53

you were giving that history is

4:56

you had maybe waited too long. And I

4:58

think that that's really a part

5:00

of a lot of your work on decision making as

5:02

well as quitting. That sometimes people

5:04

wait for just the right time

5:06

or what is the right time. How

5:08

do you frame that for people who are listening and

5:10

maybe thinking about a big decision or have

5:12

been stuck in not making one?

5:14

Well, first of all, I just wanna make something

5:16

clear. Like, that sentence that you just said

5:19

stuck in not making a decision, is

5:21

a sentence that I think we should all start rejecting.

5:24

Okay? because not

5:26

deciding whatever that means is

5:28

making a decision. It's just a question of

5:30

are you staying with the status quo

5:32

or

5:32

are you shifting?

5:34

And I think that

5:36

we don't, sort of cognitively,

5:38

the evidence is that when we're sticking with the status

5:40

quo, we don't think about it as a decision.

5:43

And I think that's problematic because we have

5:45

to realize that every day we stick to something

5:47

that we're unhappy with, is a day

5:49

we're choosing to do that whether

5:51

we want to acknowledge it or not. And

5:53

there's some attendant issues that come with that,

5:55

which is that for things that we

5:57

think about as decisions, we

5:59

worry a lot about the losses

6:02

that might be associated with that

6:04

decision in a way that we don't for the status quo.

6:06

So, like, I talked to a woman

6:09

for for my book named Sarah Olson

6:11

Martinez who was trying to decide whether to stay

6:13

in her job as a hospital administrator, and

6:15

she did about six shifts a week

6:18

as a doc as well, or

6:20

switched to a job. She had been offered

6:23

evaluating cases for

6:25

an insurance company. And she did

6:27

this thing, which is, you

6:29

know, I sent to her, well, why don't you wanna switch because

6:31

it was very clear she was miserable in the job

6:33

that she was in. And she

6:35

said, well, what if I take the new job

6:37

and I don't like it? So that's that

6:39

problem of we worry about, like,

6:41

getting a bad outcome from something we think

6:43

we're deciding to switch to in a way we

6:45

don't think about it for the thing we're doing because I

6:47

sent to her Imagine it's a year

6:49

from now and you stay in your job. What's the

6:51

probability you're happy? And she said zero

6:53

percent. That was her actual answer. then

6:56

when I said, well, what's the probability you'll be happy

6:58

in the news day? She said, I don't know, fifty

7:00

percent. And I just said it's fifty percent greater

7:02

than zero. So that gives us the first

7:04

clue as to how to be better sort

7:07

of thinking about should

7:09

we switch to something or not is

7:11

we wanna get focused on two things.

7:13

One is what's it gonna cost me to

7:15

continue? Right? So that was that

7:17

are you gonna be happy in a year? Because

7:19

that's the cost. Right? And she said no.

7:21

So I'm getting her focused on the cost to

7:23

continue. And then I switched

7:25

her over and said, what is the cost

7:27

of not switching? Which is a

7:29

much she's costing herself a

7:31

much greater chance at happiness. And

7:34

that actually got her to quit, go take the new

7:36

job. She did it that week,

7:38

actually, and she's a lot happier.

7:40

But this is generally a problem with

7:42

with these decisions about making

7:44

these sort of big life switches is

7:46

that we're really slow to do them.

7:49

And usually, when

7:50

we quit, we'd do it way too late. And

7:52

I think we get all into it that, like, you know, you break

7:55

up with someone who why didn't I do that sooner? You

7:57

leave your job. Why didn't I do that sooner? I left

7:59

poker Why didn't you do

7:59

that sooner? And that's sort of a common refrain.

8:02

And so I think

8:05

do you think that pro and cons lists

8:07

are the way to then do that. Like, having

8:09

somebody say what you just said. Right? Okay. Well,

8:11

what's the probability of you being happy?

8:13

Zero? What's the probability of you I don't

8:15

know, fifty percent. Well, fifty is better than

8:17

zero. So, you know, if you don't

8:19

have somebody like Annie, right, in

8:21

your ear saying, let me ask you these questions.

8:23

What is the best way to individually

8:25

get yourself to that decision potentially. Yeah.

8:27

So pros and cons lists are actually very bad

8:30

tools. They're not good decision tools for the reason

8:32

that they amplify bias. And you

8:33

can see why that is. There's two problems.

8:35

One is that if you're kind

8:38

of biased toward wanting to do it, you'll

8:40

just create a lot of pros. And if biased

8:42

toward not wanting to do it, you'll create a

8:44

lot of cons. The other

8:46

thing is that we want it

8:48

the cons themselves get you focused on the

8:50

downside in a way that we don't really want

8:53

to, and there's no probabilities

8:55

associated with it. Right?

8:57

So you wanna think about, well, this could be a

8:59

bad outcome from this, but what's the chances of

9:01

that happening? So I dumping pros and

9:03

cons list is a good way to improve

9:05

your decision making. Instead,

9:07

for when it comes to decisions about making

9:09

these kinds of switches or

9:11

sticking with what you're doing, the big

9:13

advice that I have is don't try to do it in

9:16

a moment. Because in the moment, it's kind of like trying

9:18

to make good decisions about eating healthy

9:20

when there's an open box of chocolates in front of

9:22

you, which is not very

9:24

good in those moments.

9:26

So instead, when I try to tell people is when

9:28

you're thinking about this, if you don't have a coach,

9:30

which by the way, if you can go find a mentor,

9:32

do that because they're gonna be really helpful.

9:34

But But what you should

9:36

do is, in that moment, you say, I'm

9:38

thinking maybe I'm not happy. Should I

9:40

make a switch? In that moment,

9:42

give yourself a deadline. So

9:44

let's say you're unhappy in your job.

9:46

How long am I okay with the

9:48

status quo? Ask that to yourself

9:50

now. So let's say you say I'm okay with the status

9:52

quo for three more months. And then say in

9:54

three months, what does

9:56

it look like if

9:58

I should switch? If I

9:59

should quit? Right? And you can write

10:02

down those

10:02

as what I call kill criteria. Right? These

10:04

are things that are gonna tell you to kill a project,

10:06

to walk away from whatever you're

10:09

doing. can

10:09

call them exit criteria if you want something softer.

10:11

I like kill criteria because I'm a little in

10:13

your face. So so you would

10:15

write those things down. and then

10:17

you can say what does it look like to

10:19

meaning it's turned around and you

10:21

can write down those things and then

10:23

say what are the inputs that I would need

10:25

in order to get to it's turned around part. So

10:27

that might be, like, frank conversations with

10:29

your boss, maybe getting

10:31

clearer KPIs, really

10:33

understanding what the things are that you need

10:35

to achieve maybe getting yourself a

10:37

coach, whatever it is. And

10:39

then when the three months comes, you can

10:41

look back at that list and you can

10:43

say, Did I, you know, do

10:45

I see these signs that tell me I should

10:47

walk away, or do I see the things that tell me

10:49

that I've turned it around? And then

10:51

it's much easier to make those decisions about whether

10:53

to walk away when you've done the advance

10:55

work. So this idea of advance work

10:57

is incredibly important, not just

11:00

when it comes to quitting decisions,

11:02

But actually, when it comes to any decision making,

11:04

if we want to be better at making decisions,

11:06

it's really good to do

11:08

advanced work. Howard Bauchner:

11:09

And so Okay. So

11:11

don't

11:12

do the pros and cons list because of the

11:14

bias. Right? Yes. So create

11:16

this sort of, you know,

11:17

structure and timeline

11:20

and goal and when you feel it in the

11:22

moment. So I think I also heard you

11:24

say don't make a rash decision that -- No. -- in

11:26

a moment, like, do it. Right? You either quit

11:28

or stick. Right? Like,

11:30

the

11:30

when it comes to your minds, you

11:32

set a deadline. This is very important. because

11:34

I'm sure that you've you've talked to people before

11:36

where they're unhappy in their work

11:38

or someone's unhappy with an employee

11:40

and you have a conversation, they say

11:42

they're gonna go talk to the

11:44

employee, let's say, and then you

11:46

catch them, you know, six months,

11:48

you know, six weeks later,

11:50

and they say, well, you know, they're

11:52

kinda getting there, but I don't know. I'm gonna have

11:54

another talk with them. And so and so

11:56

forth, same thing for someone who's thinking about quitting

11:58

their job. you'll talk to people, you know, this will it

12:00

will cycle, like, every three months, you keep

12:02

sort of having the same conversation with

12:04

them. because when we actually allow ourselves

12:06

to butt up against the

12:08

decision, we're very good at

12:10

rationalizing a way

12:12

to stick with the status quo for the reason that

12:14

we're afraid to make that choice. because

12:17

when we make that choice, we sort of

12:19

really metabolize the failure

12:21

as our fault. Whereas when we have

12:23

bad outcomes from the status quo, we

12:25

do not feel that same kind of

12:26

regret. We

12:27

don't feel that same kind of blame. So we

12:30

just really get huge to that. And that's

12:32

separate and apart from

12:33

issues of, like, sunk costs, like, but then I'll

12:35

have wasted my time. I did all this

12:38

onboarding. I learned the culture. I did

12:40

all my training. You know? So and so

12:42

forth, and we don't like to give that stuff

12:44

up either. So that's why these deadlines

12:46

are so important because otherwise you will

12:48

keep rationalizing away and you'll end

12:50

up wasting a lot of time

12:52

sort

12:52

of like delaying

12:54

what

12:54

you think of as the decision, which

12:56

is really just the decision to

12:58

switch. So always have a deadline. As soon

13:00

as you think I'm thinking maybe

13:02

I'm not happy. Set a deadline. and then

13:05

make very clear make it very

13:07

clear to that future version

13:09

of you what good looks like and

13:11

what bad looks like. so that

13:13

you can then say, I'm gonna commit

13:15

when I see that it still looks bad, that I'm gonna

13:17

walk away, and I'm gonna commit that

13:19

when things have turned around,

13:21

by definition of things turning around, whatever

13:23

that is that you value, that

13:25

that, you know, I'll continue to stay and

13:27

I'll understand the difference at that point. Yeah.

13:29

And I

13:29

think I'm using your words, but you end

13:32

up, you know, betting against the

13:34

future version of yourself. These are your

13:35

words. Right? Right? Because -- Yeah.

13:37

-- you're you're stuck

13:39

in this. I I'm not actually

13:41

I'm not actually betting on myself. I don't believe

13:43

I can make it through this. I don't believe it's

13:45

the right decision or or I don't believe

13:47

three months is enough time or whatever

13:49

you've sort of self, you know,

13:51

yourself talk. right, can hold you

13:54

back from even if you set the

13:56

goal, doesn't mean in ninety days you

13:57

don't move the goal post. Which

13:59

is

13:59

what we do, and that's how you end up rinsing,

14:02

repeating the same versation with somebody

14:04

where you as an outsider can very

14:06

clearly see that they should walk away.

14:08

But so by thinking about it

14:10

in advance, you become a little bit like

14:12

an outside adviser to yourself because

14:15

we're just more rational when we're thinking in

14:17

advance. So just in the way that I can

14:19

see three months is a good deadline. I

14:21

kind of know what good looks like for

14:23

you, you know, so and so forth.

14:25

When I'm thinking for myself, I sort of I'm

14:27

seeing myself from the outside a little

14:29

bit better because the future version of me is

14:31

in a lot of ways not me.

14:33

It's a person that I'm advising that's gonna

14:35

exist sometime in the future. And so

14:37

I'm less likely to do all the rationalization

14:39

and the punting and that

14:41

kind of thing in it. And the science is very

14:43

strong on this that this kind of advanced

14:45

planning is very helpful whether we're

14:47

talking about equating decision or

14:49

whether we're talking about how do you stick

14:51

to, you know, healthy

14:53

eating plan? How do you make sure that you

14:55

continue to go to the gym?

14:57

How do you think about

14:59

the way that you handle argument with your

15:01

spouse. Like, all of these things where we

15:03

think in advance about what we want to

15:05

actually do and make a commitment to it

15:07

in advance just improves the

15:10

quality of the decisions that you'll make when you

15:12

actually face those down?

15:13

Well, you know, I talked to a lot of executives,

15:16

you know, around the globe,

15:18

and and I see two sides to the to

15:20

a similar coin, and I'd love your take on

15:22

this. Sometimes

15:23

I'll sit down with executives and we're talking

15:25

about maybe a medium term

15:27

strategy. Right? Okay. We're trying to do this two

15:29

years from now. We're starting to make investments

15:31

today, you know, and then sort of, you

15:33

know, keep on with the meetings with them

15:35

similar. Right? If coaching situation or a

15:37

consulting situation, you're on a sort of a

15:39

regular cadence with them. And then all of a

15:41

sudden, one day, they pull the plug.

15:43

Like, It's not giving me

15:45

the return I thought I was going to get. Like,

15:47

well, wait a second. Like, didn't we say it

15:49

was gonna be a two year journey

15:51

and it's month three or five

15:53

or six they pull the plug. And then

15:55

a year goes by, and then they go, I think

15:57

we need to revisit that. Right? And so they don't give

15:59

it enough time to sort of

16:01

set you actually start to show momentum

16:03

that they don't have the patience. That's one

16:05

side to the coin. The other side to the coin

16:07

is, you know, it's like, well, we're gonna

16:09

try this. and we want to get

16:11

somewhere in two years. And then your six

16:13

months or twelve months in and something

16:15

has drastically changed where it's not

16:17

a good strategy anymore. Now it's like net out,

16:19

to your point, they've made all these investments

16:21

and they won't pull the plug. So

16:23

how do you I'm I'm You've

16:25

never heard those two scenarios before. Right? You hear them

16:28

all the time. But maybe

16:30

step through the two scenarios at both

16:32

sides. And and and how would you

16:34

advise someone listening who's, you know,

16:36

in either of those camps.

16:37

So look,

16:40

whether

16:40

to stick or whether to quit is a calibration

16:42

issue. Right?

16:44

They're not actually different decisions

16:46

where sticking to things is somehow a virtue and

16:48

quitting his advice. It's no. It depends

16:50

on the context that you're sitting in. and people

16:52

make both mistakes, which is what you're

16:54

describing. So here's one of the

16:56

problems with goal setting, is

16:58

that when we set a goal, we're often

17:00

head to the goal no matter what.

17:02

Right? So we'll become very

17:05

isolated. Well, we become fixed it

17:08

because it's a fixed object in a

17:10

changing world. We become

17:12

essentially unattensive to

17:14

the changes that might be occurring in the world.

17:16

So much so that, like, there was

17:17

this woman, Shivano, Keith, who ran a

17:19

two thousand nineteen marathon, broke her leg on mile

17:22

eight, and finished the

17:23

race against medical advice. Now,

17:26

obviously, that's absurd because

17:29

you're

17:29

you're possibly sacrificing

17:31

literally ever being able to run a race again, but

17:33

why did she do that?

17:35

Because there was

17:36

a finish line. There

17:37

was a goal, and eight miles

17:40

past the starting line doesn't count for anything. In

17:42

fact, if you make it to within three hundred feet of

17:44

the summit of Everest and turn around, you

17:46

have sailed. never mind that you've

17:48

got twenty nine thousand feet there. So we all get

17:50

this version of Summit Fever. By the way,

17:52

antiviral chief isn't weird. There were four

17:54

people in the two thousand nineteen London

17:56

marathon alone who did that. And it

17:58

happens in every single marathon that people

17:59

will finish with broken bones. Not like

18:01

half a mile, like

18:03

many, many miles. Okay. So that sort of problem, the

18:06

problem with with goes but sometimes you

18:08

can also be too reactive. Okay.

18:10

So

18:10

there's there's two ways to solve for

18:12

this problem, and they both actually solve for the

18:14

problem

18:15

both problems at the same time. So kill

18:17

criteria is one of them. So when you

18:19

start a project, What you want to say is, what could

18:21

we see? What are the things that we

18:23

could see that would tell us that this is

18:25

not worth pursuing? in the

18:27

future. Right? So

18:28

what could we see for example in six months that

18:31

would tell us that this is not worth

18:33

pursuing? And you can put that conversation on

18:35

a regular cadence. So

18:37

this is something that I do with all

18:39

of my clients when we're entering into

18:41

a strategic initiative, even just

18:44

like a you know, you've gotten a

18:46

client, a a possible lead through

18:48

for a customer through an RFP or RFI.

18:51

What are the things that you could see that would tell

18:53

you that you're not gonna win this

18:55

deal? as an example. Right? So it's like, they only wanna talk

18:57

about price. They don't even wanna product demo ever.

18:59

Right? So that would be a good one where we know, kid,

19:01

that's something we're gonna see that we we should walk

19:04

away from. Now that's gonna solve setting those types

19:06

of kill criteria, and obviously for a two

19:08

year project, you're going what probably

19:11

wanna go through that process once a quarter. So

19:13

you've got it on a regular cadence where you're thinking

19:15

about what can we see in the next quarter

19:17

that would tell us that we ought to walk

19:19

away. solves both problems. It stops

19:21

you from overreacting to things.

19:23

Because if they're not on your list, you wouldn't

19:26

walk away. and it stops you from

19:28

underreacting to things because if they are

19:30

on your list, you would walk away. So it creates

19:32

an unless to that fixed

19:34

goal. Right? Like, I wanna hit the finish line unless

19:36

I break my leg. So that's the first

19:38

thing is these kill criteria are very helpful for

19:40

that. But the other thing is

19:43

something called monkeys and pedestals.

19:45

So monkeys and

19:45

pedestals is a mental model

19:48

from astroteller over at

19:50

X, which is Google's announced innovation hub. And I think this is

19:52

very helpful when we get into project planning,

19:56

strategic initiatives, product development

19:58

to help us to start to get to

19:59

should we quit or should we stick

20:02

to it. When we're

20:02

entering into a two year

20:05

strategic initiative where there's gonna be a lot of uncertainty that

20:07

facts on the ground are gonna change. Okay.

20:09

So monkeys and pedestals goes

20:12

like this. If you're trying to train a monkey to juggle flaming

20:14

torches while standing on a

20:16

pedestal, in order to make

20:17

a bunch of money with your act,

20:19

There are two pieces to that puzzle.

20:21

Can you train the monkey

20:22

to juggle the flaming torches, and

20:24

then there's also building the pedestal.

20:27

Do not build the pedestal first.

20:29

Because for several reasons,

20:32

what is the thing that you don't know that

20:34

you need to prove to

20:36

know that this is worth pursuing. Well, it's can

20:38

I train the monkey to juggle the flaming torches?

20:41

That's the thing you don't know. So that's what you always

20:43

have to attack first. Because

20:46

a. There's no point in

20:47

building a pedestal if you can't get the monkey to

20:49

juggle problem number one. b

20:51

is that you

20:54

already know you can build a pedestal. So

20:56

if you build the pedestal, it represents false progress and

20:58

we don't want false progress because false

21:01

progress makes it harder for us to quit later, which

21:03

is the third problem. When you

21:05

built lots of pedestals, you've created

21:07

ownership and sunk costs, and your

21:09

identity gets it tied into it, and

21:11

there's career risk now associated

21:13

with abandoning the pedestal. And

21:15

so that's really the third problem with building

21:17

the pedestals. You already know you can do it. So

21:19

you really want to attack a

21:21

monkey first. So it always be monkeys

21:24

first. And so,

21:25

essentially, well,

21:27

I'm sure, Tiffany. have

21:29

you ever been in one of these meetings? And

21:32

they

21:32

say when they're doing the kickoff,

21:35

what's the low hanging fruit? Oh,

21:38

yeah, all

21:39

the time. And then they're like, let's do that

21:41

so that we can start making progress right

21:43

away. And it's like, no.

21:46

don't do that because low

21:48

hanging fruit by definition is

21:50

pedestal building. You already buy

21:52

that's why it's low hanging fruit already know you

21:54

can do it. So don't start to tackle the low hanging

21:56

fruit except under two circumstances. One

21:58

is

21:58

you've already figured out

21:59

if you can solve for the monkey or you

22:02

have to build that pedestal order in order to get

22:04

the information about the monkey. So

22:06

here's like a super simple example

22:08

of monkeys and pedestals.

22:10

The

22:11

California Bulleit Train, I know you live in LA,

22:13

so you're familiar with this project,

22:16

connecting LA to San Francisco.

22:18

Okay?

22:18

They,

22:19

in two thousand ten, flowed in a

22:21

bond for nine billion dollars on a thirty

22:23

three billion dollars budget

22:25

to build high speed

22:27

rail connecting the two

22:29

economic engines of the state. Where

22:31

did they start building track?

22:34

between Madera and Fresno on flat

22:37

land in the central

22:39

valley. That is a pedestal. We already know

22:41

we can do that. they

22:43

then built track

22:44

they then decided to build a section of track

22:47

between

22:48

Fresno I'm sorry, between

22:51

Mercedes and Bakersfield.

22:52

also on flat land, a

22:55

pedestal. The

22:55

next piece of track they're building is between

22:57

San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Also

22:59

flat land, a pedestal,

23:01

Do you know what they still haven't addressed?

23:03

That there are two ginormous mountain

23:06

ranges, the Diablo range and the Tedchoppy

23:08

Mountains to the north of LA, the Diablo

23:10

ranges to the south of San Francisco, And

23:12

they still have no idea

23:14

if

23:14

they can blast through those mountains safely

23:16

because they're in a seismicly active

23:18

area. It's on the San Andreas fall.

23:21

Okay. So they have now spent

23:23

nine billion dollars of taxpayer money

23:26

building pedestals without actually

23:28

knowing if they can train those those

23:30

monkeys to juggle. They don't know if they can get

23:32

through the mountains. The budget has exploded

23:34

from thirty three billion to I think it's now up

23:36

to a hundred and fifteen, a hundred and twenty billion.

23:38

at this point, and they're not

23:41

stopping. So this

23:41

is why monkeys and pedestals are so

23:44

important because if you approach that

23:46

project, with

23:46

this idea. The first thing you would do is

23:48

an engineering study on the two mountains, and

23:50

then you know what would happen, you'd get your

23:53

answer really, really fast. And you would

23:55

know, should we jump ship or should we stick

23:57

to it? Yeah. Before you even

23:59

rate did the bond.

24:00

Like, if you Or you did the bond.

24:03

Exactly. You do the engineering study, and then you

24:05

figure it out. But now they're stuck in

24:07

it. And like the CEO who says,

24:09

well, we've got a goal. Let's just

24:11

keep going. Well, and it's not just

24:13

walking away. It it's you know, some of it

24:15

is is is ego. Some of

24:17

it is they're not asking in the right question. Some of it

24:19

is, if we set the goal, everyone. Right?

24:21

It's sort of like that kind of Yeah. And we

24:23

just we work it's gonna manifest

24:25

it. Yeah. Gold are great. So

24:27

it's

24:27

great. Right? If

24:28

you're going to be successful at something you will

24:30

have had to stick to it. GOLs

24:32

motivate people. It's just that we need to

24:35

realize that Sometimes goals

24:37

should change because the world changes.

24:39

Right? Sometimes grid isn't right because

24:41

you get bad news. and

24:42

you find out, you know, there's two mountain

24:44

ranges, oops, and you

24:45

should probably walk away or you have

24:47

a strategic initiative and then the

24:49

pandemic hits and you say, oh, we

24:51

better change our minds about that. And that's

24:54

all okay. So I think everybody

24:56

should have lots and lots of very clearly

24:58

define goals that also have lots of inleses

25:00

associated with them.

25:01

Well, I'm gonna pivot just a

25:04

little bit because I think this

25:06

leads us to a story that

25:07

you and I were talking about before we went

25:10

live, about, you know, a

25:12

company that kinda

25:14

had this amazing opportunity

25:17

to do very different

25:19

things. But, you

25:21

know, maybe didn't make the

25:23

right decisions. I would

25:25

love for you to share that story because I think

25:27

at least in the US, right, it is a brand

25:29

most people know. For sure.

25:32

Sure. So this is

25:32

a story about identity.

25:35

So one of the hardest

25:37

things to quit is who you

25:39

are. Right? It's part of the reason why I quit poker

25:41

too late because I was a poker player

25:43

who's on TV. That's how people knew

25:46

me. And

25:46

this can really get in the way

25:49

of good decisions about what to stick to and

25:51

what not to stick to. So this is a story

25:53

about Sears. which

25:55

is a big retail company in

25:57

the US. They sold everything

25:59

literally. You can get a

26:02

wrench or a bra. like,

26:04

in the exact house or her house.

26:07

Right. So they started

26:09

in the late eighteen hundreds with the a

26:11

book of bargains, which was a five hundred and

26:13

twelve page catalog. And the idea was that the mail

26:15

service had really just started to ramp up.

26:17

There were all these people who lived in rural

26:20

America that were not particularly mobile because

26:21

there were no cars yet. And

26:23

this allowed them to get things like bicycles,

26:26

right, or wrenches, or things that it was hard

26:28

for them to find elsewhere. It was a

26:30

humongous success

26:31

its IPO

26:34

was huge in the early nineteen

26:36

hundreds. In the nineteen

26:38

twenties, Roboc or

26:40

Sears Mr. Sears was worth

26:43

twenty

26:43

six million dollars. I

26:44

mean, so this

26:45

was a very big company. In

26:47

fact, by the nineteen fifties,

26:50

the Sears

26:51

represented one percent

26:53

of USGMP.

26:54

Think about that.

26:56

I mean,

26:56

that's huge. So somewhere

26:59

around the early thirties, they

27:01

still had their catalog, but they went

27:03

to retail locations because

27:05

people started driving cars. And so

27:07

they were a little bit more mobile. And so

27:09

they created locations that people could drive

27:11

to. Obviously, that was a booming success because

27:14

by the nineteen fifties, they were number

27:16

one retailer in the country,

27:18

built the Sears Tower.

27:21

And then starting sort

27:24

of in the early eighties, you

27:25

start to see some cracks happening.

27:28

Because Kmart and

27:29

Walmart start to come

27:32

into the space, So

27:33

they're sort of pushing them from the bottom. And then

27:35

you also have, like, Nordstrom's name

27:37

in Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue pushing them

27:39

from the top. and Sears starts to

27:41

find not kind of find its footing

27:44

anymore in the retail space. By the nineties,

27:46

they're no longer the number one

27:48

retailer. Kmart and Walmart have

27:50

taken that spot. Target is now

27:52

on its way in as well. And then

27:54

we kind of know the rest of a

27:56

story as they went into a very sad story of bankruptcy.

27:59

So that's the story that most people know

28:01

about Sears, but there's a whole other story

28:03

about Sears, and it's about Sears, the

28:05

financial service this company. So

28:07

they started off giving credit to

28:09

their customers right away. So they always had

28:11

a banking division. But then

28:13

in the nineteen thirties, remember I said, they said, oh, people are driving

28:16

cars. We need retail locations.

28:18

Along with that, they said, they need

28:20

insurance for these cars. So

28:22

they

28:22

founded a company that you may have heard of

28:24

before called Allstate Insurance.

28:27

And they literally had desks

28:29

in so you

28:29

could buy a rent, a bra, and car

28:32

insurance. That's where you could buy now in the

28:34

store. So they had

28:36

desks in in the stores and then they

28:38

obviously eventually branched

28:40

out and became the largest insurer

28:42

of personal liability. So

28:45

they they owned Allstate. And then in the

28:47

seventies, they found a Discover card

28:49

in order to give credit, you know, make a

28:51

credit card for their customers. They also acquired

28:53

Dean Witter, which was a very huge stock

28:56

brokerage. And someone made a joke about

28:58

Sears at that time. It was stocks and

29:00

socks, which was great. But Dean Witter was really

29:02

huge. And then they also had Coldwell

29:04

Banker. Okay?

29:05

So if you look at the

29:08

market cap, of All

29:09

State Insurance

29:10

alone. The last time I looked, it

29:12

was like forty billion dollars alone,

29:14

but that's not including

29:17

Dean Whitter, Discover, and Coldwell

29:19

Bankers. We're talking about a hundred

29:21

billion dollars in market cap. So the

29:23

question is how on Earth did Sears go

29:25

broke. Now that becomes very confusing,

29:27

and it has to do with

29:29

identity.

29:30

So what happened was they have these

29:32

thriving financial services companies. And

29:35

they have a faltering. In the early

29:37

nineties, they have a faltering retail business

29:39

that's starting to really lose money.

29:41

The

29:42

shareholders

29:44

basically

29:44

demand

29:46

action. The board has a confab

29:48

and

29:48

they come out of it with this brilliant

29:51

decision. We need to get back to our

29:53

retailing route. So

29:55

they now sell

29:58

Allstate, Morgan

29:59

morgan

29:59

Stanley, Acquirers. I think it was

30:02

Morgan Stanley or JPMorgan. I can't remember which one

30:04

right now. Acquires Dean,

30:06

I think it was Morgan Stanley. Dean

30:08

Whitter and Discover card that represented

30:10

forty percent of Morgan Stanley's net

30:12

net, you know, worth at the time of

30:14

their market cap time, so I don't even know what

30:16

that's worth. And they sell off Cold War

30:19

Banker.

30:19

Okay? So they literally sell off all of

30:21

the profitable assets to

30:23

keep the unprofitable ones.

30:25

Even

30:25

Whirlpool. Right? I think it was also

30:27

Whirlpool workplace.

30:28

Yeah. Sell off everything. So

30:30

now they'd go broke.

30:32

And that it's that back to the retailing roots?

30:34

So the question is, like, why would they make such

30:36

bad decisions about it? because the hardest thing to quit

30:38

is who you are. And

30:40

nobody To this date, nobody knew that

30:42

they owned Allstate.

30:43

Nobody knew they owned Dean Witter or

30:46

Discover Card. Sears was a

30:48

retail company. And they

30:49

when it came pushed to shove,

30:51

they

30:51

wanted to keep their identity.

30:54

And they

30:54

quit the stuff that that they,

30:56

you know, that

30:57

wasn't associated with them in the same way.

30:59

And I think not just from a business

31:01

perspective, like, what are you holding on to? Because

31:03

because it's part of your business identity,

31:06

but also on a personal level, what

31:08

are you holding on to because it's part of

31:10

your identity? Right? Though that's

31:12

what we really have to ask ourselves

31:15

And I think that, for example, in the political

31:17

space right now, we can see this problem

31:19

where people are really identified

31:22

with certain political parties that have

31:24

beliefs as so them and

31:26

no matter how many facts you throw at

31:28

anybody, they don't change their mind because

31:30

these are very hard things to

31:32

let go. And if Sears, which is a bunch

31:34

of very successful people, could make

31:36

that mistake, we need to think about how we're making

31:38

that mistake for ourselves. Yeah.

31:40

And I mean, there's there's so much

31:42

underneath that. Right? And and

31:45

and III wanna just

31:47

kind of end our time together saying,

31:49

you know, the the last two

31:51

years well, sort of when we were in

31:53

lockdown, I guess, so during that

31:55

time. You know, who I was was a keynote speaker. I

31:57

was on the road all the time, and then all of a sudden,

31:59

my identity.

31:59

Right? I was home bound. I had to build a

32:02

studio in my house. Like, I had to kind of

32:04

reinvent myself and make different decisions

32:06

about what I was going to do.

32:08

And and do you think that this is led what do

32:10

you think that that led to people saying

32:12

this, I I don't like the great

32:14

resignation. like the great reflection. Like, I took a

32:16

pause and said, is this what I wanna be doing? I

32:18

I don't like resignation. And then now

32:20

here we are talking about quote unquote quiet

32:23

quitting. which that's if sounds like a whole lot of lack of

32:25

decision. is a lot of hui. Like,

32:27

yeah. You're not quitting.

32:29

You're you're making everybody else to

32:31

your job. I I so but but

32:33

when it comes to the great

32:35

resignation, look, here's the thing. When

32:37

we

32:37

start things, we create a mental account,

32:39

and that mental account starts to accumulate

32:42

debris. Whether

32:42

it's the

32:44

time and energy or

32:47

money or attention that we've put into

32:49

something. So those would be some

32:51

cost, whether it's the things that we

32:53

build along the way that would have to do with

32:55

ownership, whether it's identity. Right?

32:57

We don't like to walk away from

32:59

those accounts. very

33:00

hard for us. But

33:01

here's the interesting thing is when we're

33:03

forced to quit, it

33:05

clears the account.

33:07

Right? The books are wiped

33:09

fresh and in the same way that we would

33:11

then start to think about what might we

33:13

want to start. as if, like, we're coming

33:15

out of college deciding what job we

33:18

wanna take. Right. We can

33:20

see things with fresher eyes and start

33:22

to evaluate. Does this fit with my values?

33:24

Does this really and make me happy. You know, and you

33:26

can see that with, like, Sarah Austin Martinez.

33:28

Right? Like, here she is in this really miserable

33:30

job, but the account hasn't been

33:32

wiped clean. So she's still sort of held on by all

33:34

those that debris that's kind of

33:36

keeping her in the job and and and not

33:38

allowing her to switch. But what if she

33:40

was fired? Right? So I'm not say I'm not

33:42

recommending you go get yourself fired. I'm just

33:44

saying there's something that can come out of that, which

33:46

is that the mental account gets

33:48

wiped clean. So here's a really

33:50

interesting thing about the great resignation. It

33:52

wasn't

33:52

everybody who

33:54

quit. It was very

33:56

specifically service workers.

33:57

Now, what is interesting about service

33:59

workers? They are the ones who all lost their jobs

34:02

when the pandemic lockdown happened.

34:04

Right? Because restaurants show it down, hotels were

34:06

laying people off. You know, all the service

34:07

workers got furloughed or laid

34:10

off or, you know, so and so

34:12

forth.

34:12

So they all have these mental

34:14

account swipe clean. So

34:16

now what happens is when the great resignation occurs,

34:18

so this is now after the reopening has

34:20

occurred. They were like, you know what?

34:22

I had some time to think. to reflect. Right?

34:24

I don't really like this. I'm gonna go

34:27

get another job. So I think we sort of think

34:29

about it as a bunch of people just quit period, but they didn't

34:31

they quit to go do something

34:33

out. Yep. That was gonna make them happier. And this

34:35

brings up also another really good important

34:37

point about quitting is not just sort of this

34:39

mental account, like wiping

34:42

that account clean which can have some very

34:44

good effect, but also that quitting has to collide

34:47

with opportunity. So

34:49

all of these people it was

34:51

when there were lots of jobs available that allowed them

34:53

to go and make the switch. Right? So

34:55

for example, with what's going

34:57

on right now,

35:00

Right?

35:00

It's probably not a great time to quit your job without

35:02

having another opportunity like that. Whereas

35:04

a year ago, it

35:05

would have been fine to quit your job because

35:07

you would know there was

35:10

lots opportunity available to you. So we always need to think

35:12

about that collision of

35:14

opportunity with

35:16

where'd accent exit.

35:18

Well, that that sort of leads us to the end of this amazing conversation.

35:20

I could keep going. But I'll I'll

35:23

tell you a couple of statements that

35:25

people made in the comments. one

35:28

was from Eric. He

35:30

said grit for grit's sake has always

35:32

bothered me. It can stand in the way of making

35:34

it in form decision. I'm sure quitting all the time isn't the answer

35:36

to. So that's correct.

35:38

We wanna

35:38

be really well calibrated. So here's what

35:41

I would say. Grick gets you to stick to things that

35:43

are worthwhile, even if they're hard, but it

35:46

also gets you to stick to things that aren't

35:48

worthwhile. So the actual

35:50

road to success is to sample a lot of stuff, quit the

35:52

things that aren't working, and

35:53

then really stick to the stuff that

35:55

is. That is the road to success, so you

35:57

have to have both

35:59

character traits. One is not good, one

36:02

is not bad. They're both good. And what matters is not

36:03

so much like winners never quit, winners never win. It's is

36:05

it worthwhile? And if

36:08

it's worthwhile,

36:08

you should stick

36:10

to it. If it's not worthwhile, you should try to quit really

36:13

fast. So it's like

36:14

the idea in sales that you wanna qualify,

36:16

you wanted one of two things.

36:18

qualify the lead out really early or close it. Right? And

36:20

you wanna do that with the things

36:22

that you're doing in your life as

36:24

well.

36:25

Well, what a great answer and what a great way

36:27

to round this off. Annie

36:29

Duke, thank you so much. It was everything I

36:32

expected it to be. So for

36:34

those of you listening, if you haven't picked up

36:36

a copy of Annie's new book,

36:38

quit, go do

36:40

that. And really the

36:42

rest of her books, she's got I think a half a

36:44

dozen books on how to play poker well, which even if

36:46

I read them, I probably wouldn't get any better.

36:48

But maybe I would. I

36:50

don't know. I don't know. I I give as much as I win, let's say

36:52

that. And then, you know, please

36:54

keep in touch. How can people keep

36:56

in touch with you,

36:58

Annie? The best place to find me is actually

37:00

annie duke dot com, which is my website.

37:02

There's a contact form there. There's

37:04

archived newsletters up there. You can

37:06

subscribe to the newsletter there. You can

37:08

see video. You there's that's where all the

37:10

links to podcasts are that I've

37:12

been on. where the links

37:14

to all my books are, you can go find

37:16

that. I'm also on Twitter for

37:18

as long as Twitter's around.

37:20

Who knows? can have a whole other discussion

37:22

about that. I'm on LinkedIn, and so you can,

37:24

you know, find me in the usual, yeah, the usual

37:26

places that you would find people.

37:29

Well, thank you, Annie. I was blessed to have you on the

37:31

show today. Thank you so much for all

37:33

your wise words, and thank you to

37:35

everybody for joining here today

37:37

on what's next live. Have a great rest of

37:40

your day.