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Hello everyone. Welcome to the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today, I'd like to make a comment about a book that I read recently called Quit by Annie Duke. Annie is a former professional poker player, and she wrote very interesting books about how we decide and how we make decisions. And this is her most recent book. And I read just because it's so counterintuitive, the concept that she wants to share, and at this time of the year, close to the end of the year, it's a time that all of us, you, your colleague, your partner is doing the same, is thinking about how was this year, how should I think next year? It's a time for reflection, of course, to gratitude for what the year brought to you, but also for you to say, Am I in the right direction of the journey? So should I change something? And this book is so relevant, and I want to share with you three key takeaways from the book that I think is very valid for us. The first one is that quitting is not negative. It seems that we were all set up. That stay is good. It shows perseverance. It shows that you are persistent, and quitting is something bad because you are fragile. You could not resist, and you could not demonstrate your persistence, so you had to quit. And what she proposes in the book, it's exactly the opposite. One of the best things for you to find and identify your long-term goals is by stopping things and starting new things.
Many times when you stay longer than you should, you are just bringing your long-term goals to a halt because you stayed too much. And this is very counterintuitive because every time that you face some challenges, people say, don't quit, don't quit because you need to be strong and persistent to do that. And this drives me to the second point, which for me was just a brilliant point, is that most of the time, we quit. We do it too late. When I read that, I said, Oh God, this is so true. This is so true. Most of the time, when we decide to go okay, now I quit. Now I will kill this project. Too late. Too late. There is already a lot of damage already in place. And this goes to you and I'm not recording this podcast talking specifically about how to handle a project, but how to handle your current position inside your company. How do you handle where you live? Should you quit this house and move to another one when it's time? For example, please. I'm not, of course, a professional in this field, but when it's time for you to quit your relationship, it's all the same. Many times we do it too late. And why do we do that? Because we want assurance. We want to be 100% secure about what we are deciding.
And in life, it's just impossible for you to be 100% sure that your job is not the best job. And then what happens? No, it will improve tomorrow. No, tomorrow will be better next week. We'll be better next week. And then when you realize, no, it will not be better, then it's too late. Then it's too late. Then you already have the damage of being trapped in maybe a golden cage, but you are trapped. The third one is the concept of sunk cost. I said this in a couple of episodes, but I will repeat again because this is so important that the energy you put into the past energy means money and time. It should not drive your future decision. There is a brilliant quote. I said this so many times from aliens who go drift in the outer of the book. The goal, he said, The first thing you should do when you are inside a hole is to stop digging, stop digging. And it's so hard because many times we say, No, I cannot quit because I already invested in this project for five years of my life. No, I invested in this project for ten years of my life. And then you never do that. And remember what I said on number one many times you need to quit to open the doors of your long-term goals. And what would be her advice? And I will build on her advice. I like it very much.
The concept of the kill criteria. Kill criteria is you create a set of criteria that will trigger your quick decision and say, look, if A, B, and C or A, B or C happens, then it's a quit, then I will quit. And you need to honor that. And you should do that in a peaceful moment. You should never. Decide to quit in the middle of the problem. She gave a brilliant example in the book that I love is that you should never think about your diet looking at a box of chocolate because it's hard. Because it's just hard. So you need to think about the criteria when truly you are in a peaceful moment and say, okay, what would trigger my decision in that direction? And you need to apply that. And now, on a personal note, I did many times. This is why, for example, I like project management very much, and I have said this also many times because project management has this temporary nature. So quitting is natural because the project comes to an end, and then another project starts, then another project comes to an end. So you have these cycles, and these cycles help you to improve, help you to leverage. For example, I spent five years at the United Nations. It was incredible. But it's over. But it's over. Why? Because for me, it was the time to do a different thing than for years, that bright line, It's over.
A brilliant time of my life. Nine years before all of this, at A and C in Brazil, building a fantastic company. But every single step progressed. I love the book by Whitney Johnson called Disrupt Yourself. And this book talks about sometimes you need to disrupt yourself to find long-term goals. So at some point, you need to close one door or quit to make room and make space for another door to open. Sometimes we are so attached to it and these, including myself, to the past that we try to hold that door open knowing that there is nothing else to see on that door. But we want just to keep it open because we are afraid of losing it, and then we don't open another door. That could be just wonderful and amazing just because we want to believe that when we know things and we have this false perception of stability. So this book is a brilliant book. Take a look at it. It has an audiobook. And also, it's really interesting mostly because it brings to us, and it brought to me something that is not common sense, that is not very intuitive, that sometimes you just need to decide to shut down, to stop things, to be able to do other things. Think about that. I hope you enjoy this podcast, and I will see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
