A note from Daniel

Kahneman and Tversky started participants off with a loss, and then they offered them the choice between walking away or paying for the opportunity to take a gamble that might erase the loss from their books. Of course, we know people tend to prefer the second option, to take the gamble rather than cut their losses, because they're taking into account the money that they already owe. We know that because there's no doubt that if you offered someone (who has neither won nor lost any money yet) a 50-50 coin flip where they could win $100 or lose $120, no sane person would take that gamble. But that's just what the participants who had a loss on the books in Kahneman and Tversky's study were willing to do.

Daniel Quit, page 91 · August 26, 2024 Save to shelf
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Daniel p. 247

Chapter 11 Summary: • Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you're trying to gain against the costs you're willing to bear. • Inflexible goals aren't a good fit for a flexible world. • With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one "unless" and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal.
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Chapter 11 Summary: • Goals can make it possible to achieve worthwhile things, but goals can also increase the chances that we will escalate commitment when we should quit. • Goals are pass-fail in nature. You either reach the finish line or you don't, and progress along the way matters very little. • Don't just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. • Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don't reach the goal.
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The False Constraints That Limit Your Potential: - How Quickly You Can Scale Whether it's your business or your career, there are unspoken timelines that people accept as gospel.They are all untrue: "You can only really grow at 10% a year." "You need to pay your dues for a decade before getting promoted." These artificial limits keep people moving at a crawl when they could be sprinting or pushing for more. The most successful people I know refuse to accept conventional wisdom about timelines, and oddly enough, they break them all the time.
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