Freakonomics Radio occasionally produces special hour-long podcasts, twice the length of the typical weekly podcasts presented by Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt. "The Upside of Quitting" originally aired in 2011, but it's continued to garner hits and attention, and earlier this spring, it was re-broadcast.
In this podcast, Levitt and Dubner rely on a plethora of experts to help debug the "winners never quit" idiom and propose "sometimes quitting is strategic, and sometimes it can be your best possible plan."
Listen to the full podcast (or download it for your MP3 player) HERE. Or, read the transcripts HERE.
Things to Think About
Levitt and Dubner's podcasts are rooted in economics. In this podcast we are introduced to two economic concepts: “sunk cost” and “opportunity cost.” According to Dubner:
“Sunk cost” is about the past — it’s the time, or money, or sweat equity that you’ve put into something, which makes it hard to abandon. “Opportunity cost” is about the future. It means that for every hour or dollar you spend on one thing, you’re giving up the opportunity to spend that hour or dollar on something else — something that might make your life better. If only you weren’t so worried about the sunk cost. If only you could quit."For this podcast, the crew called upon Hal Arkes, among many experts. He’s a psychology professor at Ohio State University and expands upon the "sunk cost fallacy." This is when one you tell yourself you can't quit because you've spent too much time or money already. Arkes claims this is an adult syndrome; children are experts at dumping the "sunk costs" and moving on.
Ponderings
Are you on board? Is it better sometimes to quit and cut the losses? How do you decide when to stick it out and when to throw in the towel?
Can you think of an example when you've come out ahead by quitting? Or a situation when you wish you'd had not quit?
What lessons can we take from this podcast for our students?
After spending close to a decade preparing for a career in commercial radio, I got a local news job and hated it. I could have [a] stuck it out and tried to make it better, [b] looked for a different radio job, or [c] invented the podcast. Instead I entirely bailed on radio and went to graduate school. I wound up at Coe. I came out ahead by quitting, I daresay!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I do have a very strong "flight" instinct, and I need to correct for that.
Throughout my life I found this question to be in the grey area. There are times when I stuck it out (took 10 years to complete my BA) and times when I wished I have left earlier (personal situation). However, no regrets either way -learned a lot about myself.
ReplyDeleteThis was another good one!
Thanks, Lisa.
This may sound silly to some, but back when quitting wasn't an option for me, I can't believe all of the times I made myself finish reading really lousy books because of the time already spent on them. Now, I save my sunk cost and my opportunity cost on the lousy books, and enjoy reading when it had somehow become a chore.
ReplyDeleteOK, I just quit.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to the Freakonomics podcast on my iPod touch, doing a bit of crocheting while I listened (kind of "doing work," kind of "relaxing.").
When my younger son asked me to go for a walk, I did, and realized that I was really getting sluggish from sitting and listening to a podcast in the middle of the afternoon! My brain was just not functioning well. Plus, I had things I needed to do.
So I quit listening.
It was kind of hard to quit. I like Freakonomics. The topic was interesting (especially the "escort's" story, and the rock band story). And I am a conscientious person--I'm doing 13 Things, so I need to DO 13 Things. I mean, I've done grad school for heaven's sake, and that takes some determination and the "not quitting" spirit.
But I guess the walk with Eli made me realize that I was starting to get diminishing returns out of that VERY LONG podcast.
I felt bad about quitting, but stopping to take a break with Eli helped me quit. I wonder if that says anything about quitting--like sometimes you might just have to say "I'm going to take a little break"--what was it the baseball guys said? Just shut it down for a while.
That's what I did.
Maybe I'll listen to the rest of the podcast later. Or maybe not.
If you look at the statement "Quitters never win" can only be a TRUE statement just by the mere fact that if you quit you can't complete whatever your engaged in and the task, game, whatever can't be "won". The second part of that statement "winners never quit" only means that the "winner" in whatever instance it is, actually stayed in to "win". It doesn't count the times that this person decided to quit. So you can be both a winner and a quitter. Deciding which to be when is the difficult part. I can really relate to the sunk cost. That is usually what keeps me invested in a project. But just like playing poker, you have to know when to cut your losses and move on.
ReplyDeleteI think our students already know about the opportunity cost--that is what they are investing $$$$ in an education for-that future opportunity. It is our job to help make that opportunity become a reality. Sometimes a lot of encouragement is needed besides the skill/knowledge set we are trying to give them.
OK, this concept is a difficult one for me. To not complete a project means failure but then that means I complete it but probably with not the best product.
ReplyDeleteBecause I really liked Freakeconomics I stuck with the podcast hoping for some enlightenment as to how this would make me happier or a better person. Yes, they were able to highlight cases where this happened but for me it didn't ring true. It may be that I've had too many years of indoctrination.
This is a really interesting concept to think about. I realize the phrase is meant to inspire determination, but I also agree with the concept of a 'sunk cost.' Determination and persistence can be extremely valuable, but it is also important to learn when to cut your losses and work on something else. I have yet to find this balance, and it's interesting to try to figure out! Thanks for sharing Lisa!
ReplyDeleteI share Bruce's tendency for 'flight'. Also, in a similar way to him, I was educated to be an engineer and worked at a well-paying job for a chemical company, which was nice . . . except I was miserable. So I quit and went to teach math at a Catholic high school. It was a wonderful, gratifying experience, but I didn't have any interest in learning more about math, so I quit. Setting my sights on teaching Psychology, I went to grad school and ended up at Coe twenty-one years ago and I have NOT quit . . . yet. (I'm thinking about becoming a 'high-end male escort', but given my age, looks, and personality, I'd end up starving.)
ReplyDeleteI recently made a decision to quit a side job that I had been doing for close to eight years because over time I become much less connected to the culture and people of the company and was losing out on the opportunity cost. However, I have been putting off this decision (and even gave them six month's notice) because of all of the time and resources I have "sunk" into them over the past few years. Since this small-time gig now gets in the way of some other opportunities (taking walks with my toddler daughter, etc) and isn't providing many of the things it did when I started (friends, decent compensation), I finally saw it as something worth quitting.
ReplyDeleteAs the parent of a toddler, I can attest to the fact that children have no problem with quitting or worrying about sunk cost. I worry every time a tower built by my daughter is knocked over and her subsequent reaction. To my frequent surprise, she couldn't care less and starts rebuilding immediately. I have learned to move on from my daughter.
I also think quitting is equated to failure too much in American culture so winning is about never quitting.
Awaking to heavy rain in Waverly on RAGBRAI with the prospect of continued rain most of the day, I quit insisting that I pedal every mile and spent the day instead with our support crew. I was able to get a lot of things lined up for the final day of biking, which I would not have done if I had spent a miserable day on the bike.
ReplyDeleteAlso, after committing myself to a journalism career in high school, I quit the Gazette after seven years as a reporter at my home town newspaper. I learned then that Cedar Rapids was more important to me than a newspaper career. A few years later, I landed at Coe.
In both of these cases, I came out ahead by quitting.