What Your DNA Might Reveal & Why Winners Sometimes Quit

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1:29So go to shopbeam.com slash sysk now. That's shopbeam.com slash sysk. Today on Something You Should Know, how to prepare yourself to see more stars in the night sky. Then, the advances in DNA are incredible and can reveal more than you may want to know. For example, I've known cases where siblings all take a DNA test at Christmas and they find out that one of them isn't actually a full sibling or their biological father is not the father that they thought it was. So sometimes these tests can turn up things that you don't necessarily expect. Also, how to keep your shoelaces from untying on their own and quitting.

2:15We're told not to quit, keep going, but sometimes quitting is the best decision. When people think about quitting, we are often really scared that we're going to regret our decision to leave. But research shows that over the long course of our lives, we tend to regret inaction much more than action. And quitting is an action. All this today on Something You Should Know. I imagine most of us shop for clothes online at least some of the time. And there's always that little mystery. Is what shows up at your door actually going to look like what you think you ordered? We've all had that experience.

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4:22Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. I'm sure you know that there are far more stars in the sky than you can see. But you can see more of them. And I'll tell you how. It's real simple as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi there. I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome. So if you ever go outside and look at the stars, there is this surprisingly simple thing you can do to see more of the stars that are out there. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness.

5:05That seems obvious, but it actually takes longer than you might think. sometimes 30 minutes or more. When you step outside from a brightly lit room, your eyes just aren't ready to detect faint light. Your pupils have to adjust, and the light-sensitive cells in your retinas gradually become better at seeing in the dark. But here's the interesting part. One quick look at a bright light can temporarily undo some of that adjustment. That's why astronomers often use dim red flashlights instead of ordinary white ones. Red light has less effect on your night vision, allowing you to check a star chart or find your way around without losing as much of your ability to see faint stars.

5:51So the next time you're watching a meteor shower or just enjoying a clear night, give your eyes about a half an hour, avoid bright light, and use a dim red flashlight if you need one. You may be surprised how many stars were there all along that you just never saw. And that is something you should know. Think about this. Inside virtually every cell in your body is a kind of instruction manual that makes you who you are. It's your DNA. And what scientists have learned to do with that instruction manual in just the last few decades is nothing short of remarkable. Your DNA can reveal where your ancestors came from, help predict your risk for certain diseases, identify a criminal from evidence left at a crime scene, or even solve a mystery that's hundreds of years old.

6:46And that's just the beginning. DNA is now being used to detect food fraud, protect endangered animals, reunite families, and answer questions that would have been impossible to answer not very long ago. Yet for something so important to our lives, most of us know surprisingly little about how DNA actually works or what it can tell us. And perhaps just as importantly, what it can't tell us. Here to reveal some of the fascinating secrets hidden in our DNA is Turi King. She is one of Britain's leading authorities on DNA and genetic research. She's a member of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences and the International Society for Forensic Genetics.

7:30She's author of a book called The Secrets of Our DNA, How Genetics Has Changed the World. Hey, Turi, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you for having me. When I think of DNA, when I hear that term, I think, well, first I think, well, that's what the police can use to solve crimes. But also that our DNA is kind of like a fingerprint. It is us. It is essentially who we are and you can identify me by my DNA, the little bits and pieces of me. And that, but that it also contains information about potential diseases I'm prone to and that kind of thing. So, but clearly it's, my definition is probably not found in any medical journal.

8:18What is it to you? What is DNA? Our DNA is a little bit like a book. And it's made up of like four different building blocks. So these are adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. We sort those down to A, C, T, and G. And it's a bit like a book kind of just made up of these four letters. So we geneticists, we can sequence it, and we can kind of read the book of you. And one of the things I kind of chat about is about sort of what we can tell about somebody from their DNA and also what we can't tell about somebody from their DNA. So here's a question. When people say, well, we found DNA, we found his DNA at a crime scene or something.

9:00Well, you didn't find DNA. You found something that contained DNA. It is cells or a hair or something. So is DNA a thing or DNA is an ingredient of things? So you are shedding cells all of the time. and all of those cells, except for red blood cells, will have DNA in them. So yes, you are shedding your DNA all over the place as we speak. And when did science first discover this? So we've known about DNA for decades, but it was a chap that I worked with called Professor Sir Alec Jeffries who on the morning of September the 10th, 1984, He was looking at this experiment that he had done where he was trying to look at the DNA of, he had like a technician from his lab and her parents and different organisms and animals.

9:56And he was kind of like looking at the results of this experiment. He's like, oh my goodness, what a mess. And then suddenly the penny drops and he realizes that each individual has their own genetic fingerprint or profile, as we call it these days. So this was like the early, earliest days of being able to identify individuals just from their DNA. And you're right. The thing that we think about these days, of course, is forensics. But it's not just about forensics. It's used in things like medicine and food security and animal conservation and identifying individuals from disasters such as 9-11 or unidentified individuals and giving them back to their families.

10:41So the use of kind of genetic identification has sort of spread around the world since then. One of the things I hear about DNA is that it can tell you if you have some sort of gene or predisposition for a disease. Yes? Yes, absolutely. So we have to kind of break this down a little bit, because there are some genetic diseases and conditions where if you have a particular genetic variant, then you will go on to get the disease. So Huntington's is one of these diseases, or Marfan syndrome is another one. But for a lot of conditions and diseases, it can be that there are particular genetic variants that predispose you to a particular condition.

11:27So BRCA1, breast cancer gene, that's one of them. So Angelina Jolie very bravely went public about the fact that she had had her BRCA1 gene tested and she had a faulty gene and a variant that gave her a very high lifetime risk of going on to develop the disease. It doesn't mean she will definitely develop it because there are other things that affect that. But she had a really high risk and a known family members who had passed away from things like breast cancer and ovarian cancer, which is affected by this multi-gene. But for a lot of conditions, so things like heart disease, things like that, we know that there's a lot, hundreds, thousands of genetic variants that will all kind of genetically predispose you towards or against developing a particular condition.

12:15And there's so many other things that come into it. So particularly sort of for things like heart disease, it's going to be things like, do you exercise? Do you smoke? What are you eating? So it's that combination of genetics and environment. And we have to be really, really mindful of that. Are there probably diseases that we still haven't figured out yet? Or do we know, have we mapped it all out and we know that these things are likely if you have this thing? No. So that's the really wonderful thing about genetics is there's still so much we don't understand. And there's another element that's coming into this now.

12:54So we know it's not just our kind of genetic sequence that's involved in disease. There's something known as epigenetics. And this is a field which I'm totally fascinated by. So it's where we know that they're like little genetic tags, like little chemical tags that kind of sit on top of the genetic sequence. And they act like a dimmer switch or invisibility cloaks. And they will turn genes on and turn genes off. And we know that that can be reversible. And we know it's affected by things like trauma, diet, exercise. So there's other things going on that affect our predisposition towards disease.

13:36And alongside that, we know that different genetic variants, they all kind of interact with each other as well as the environment. And that's what we're still trying to tease out. So that's what I really love about our field is we understand a lot, but there's so much we are still trying to learn and understand. You said that DNA and genetics is used in food security. Explain that. Yeah, so this is things like, one of the things I talk about is SushiGate, which was something that happened a couple of decades ago. It was using something known as genetic barcoding. So it's not kind of DNA profiling where you can tell an individual, you know, from their DNA.

14:20It's where you can tell a species. And it was this, you know, so she was a student. She was talking to her dad who was doing DNA barcoding. and they were having dinner one night and they were having sushi. And she kind of said to her dad, do you think we could work out what kind of fish is in this sushi? So she and a friend went and bought all kinds of different types of fish and sushi and they sent it off to a chap who was doing DNA barcoding on fish. And what they found out was that some of the fish is not what it's labeled to be. Some were endangered species. Some were cheaper species being sold as more expensive species.

14:58And it's been used for all kinds of things. So, for example, there was a case where people thought they were buying monkfish, and it was actually pufferfish, which is extremely poisonous fish. So it's now used for things like food security. Regularly or only when people think something's up? Is this part of the process now? It's regular. Yeah, it's used regularly now. It's something which people are now routinely testing food stuffs for this kind of thing. And do you know, do they often find trouble or is it usually it's just fine, but this is just a one level of security more? So it's a level of security more, but yes, they do find it regularly.

15:44I mean, one of the more recent cases was Horsegate, which happened over here, where they were looking at what they thought were beef products. And some of them were found to contain horse. Some of them were found to contain lots and lots of horse meat. And so it is something that it does turn up things fairly regularly. You also said a few minutes ago that DNA is used in animal conservation, which I don't think I've heard before. So I want to ask you about that, and we'll do that when we come back in just a moment. This episode is sponsored by Vinted. You know, I remember interviewing an organizing expert who offered this really clever trick for figuring out which clothes you should get rid of.

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18:38Native Path gives you the same 5 grams of Fortabone used in that research in an easy-to-mix daily formula. I just got mine because bone health is something I'd rather pay attention to now than wish I had later. And here's a great reason to try Native Path Bone Health Collagen right now. You can save up to 48%, Get free shipping, and it's backed by a 365-day money-back guarantee. Now that's a pretty compelling offer if you've been thinking about doing something to support your bone health. Go to GetBetterBones.com slash S-Y-S-K. That's G-E-T BetterBones.com slash S-Y-S-K. My guest is Turi King.

19:26She is one of Britain's leading authorities on DNA and genetic research, and she's author of the book, The Secrets of Our DNA. So you mentioned that DNA is used in a lot of things, and animal conservation is one of them. So can you explain that? Yeah, so this is where DNA fingerprinting, DNA profiling comes in. So this is where they are able to do things like trace where ivory tusks have come from that have been illegally exported or imported into different countries. And they can try to understand where are these particular tusks coming from, which herds, where are they? And that can then impact things like, you know, where do they place law enforcement to try and stop this sort of thing happening?

20:17and it has an impact on how we can kind of think about conservation. So you can do things where you have breeding programs. Obviously, what you would like to do is not have inbreeding that happens where you might have siblings breeding together to produce offspring. You'd like them to be more distantly related. So you can do DNA fingerprinting of particular kind of groups and work out breeding programs for that. So it's really incredible and wonderful what DNA can be used for now. There are a lot of offers of getting your DNA tested, 23andMe and Ancestry and all. What do those tell us, and are they as accurate as we would like to think they are?

21:02What are the pros and cons, if any, of those kinds of testings for the average person? Yeah, so I always say it depends on what you're doing it for. If it's for something that's medical, I would always caution people because what they're testing is not across, you know, all of the particular diseases that people might be interested in. They might test one particular genetic variant and not another variant that we know has an impact on the previous variant. So I would always say if it's something that you're worried about health wise, I would go to your care provider for that. in terms of things like learning about our ancestry I always say look you have to be a little bit careful because in terms of finding about about any one of your particular ancestors with any sort of certainty it only takes you back a few generations once you get past that point it's basically just telling you something about the populations that you're from so I do a television program over here in the UK where we use DNA testing from these companies to help people answer questions about who they're related to or, you know, their ancestry.

22:12So for example, if somebody is adopted, or if their donor conceived, they don't know anything potentially about their ancestry. And this can really provide answers for them. And for people who, for example, don't know who a parent is, this can help find a parent for them. And it can be incredibly moving to be a part of this. This is where I think there's a tremendous power in some of the DNA testing that's possible to do. If people have grown up not knowing who either or one of their parents is, and we can answer questions using this, it can be incredibly powerful for them in terms of their identity and how they feel that they kind of fit in the world.

23:00And I also do caution people on that because you can take one of these DNA tests and find out something that you were not expecting. So for example, I've known cases where siblings all take a DNA test at Christmas and they find out that one of them isn't actually a full sibling. Or they take a DNA test and they find out who their biological father is not the father that they thought it was. So I always caution people that sometimes these tests can turn up things that you don't necessarily expect. Yeah, as I recall this story, I remember someone who very much identified as having Hispanic heritage and then did one of these tests and found that they're almost zero percent Hispanic.

23:45And it was like very strange. I mean, it's like this weird thing that how could that be? So it depends on how recently they thought the Hispanic heritage was. So you inherit 50 % of your DNA from each of your parents, 25 % from each of your grandparents, 12.5 % from each of your, and going back through time. And it's an average. So it is perfectly possible to not have any substantive DNA from, say, a great, great, great, great grandparent. And something that isn't picked. So it depends on whether or not the Hispanic ancestry was recent or not. Basically what these companies do is they take your DNA and they will look for matches in the database that they have, which is why you get different results if you do use it from a different company.

24:38Each company has its own database. So what it depends on is how big is that database, whether or not they've got a representative sample from a particular population in that database. So with some of the really big testing companies, they're fantastic for ancestry because they've got such big reference populations that you know you are going to find that you've got probably genetic matches yeah well i i remember because i had one of those tests done a long time ago and i and i got the results and then and then i got updated results and yeah it changed and i well i didn't change i you know but now i'm not as much this as i was that well how how could that be?

25:21Well, exactly. So this is it. So when you when you take the DNA test, it's comparing against the database that they have at that time. And as more people take tests, and they get DNA from different populations, and they do the match again, it's not that you've changed, it's where the matches are happening in the database. And it's just because as the database grows, it might be that previously, the closest match that you had was in a particular population for a particular piece of your DNA. Now they've got another population in there. Actually, the closest match is in that population. So it's just the databases that are changing, not you.

25:59But one of the things I sort of caution about this is some people take it really, really seriously in terms I am X percent this. And that is not what the DNA testing companies are doing. They're giving you kind of a bit of a range in terms of it's looking like this percentage, but it could be a little bit more or a little bit less, seems to be coming. These are the matches in the database now from this particular population. So as I say, it can be really, really helpful for people who are adopted, for example, and don't know what their ancestry is. But I would caution people about getting really hung up on the percentages that they have in particular populations, because that is simply based on the database at the time.

26:44In identifying a person from their DNA, like in a crime, you often will see on TV, you know, someone, some expert will get up and say, you know, the chances of this crime being committed by someone other than the defendant is one in 10 million or whatever, whatever the number is, they say. So is that science purely science? Or if you brought in another expert, might he read it and say, no, that's not right? So that's really interesting. So it is based on the number of genetic markers that you do. So they are looking at particular genetic variants across the genome. And for example, you've got two copies of each variant because you've got one variant comes from your mom and one variant comes from your dad.

27:36So, for example, if you and I took a DNA test and we were looking at just one particular genetic variant, it could be that purely by chance we happen to share the same variance on those two, on that single marker. But the more markers that you do, it gets significantly less likely that purely by chance you are going to match on those particular things. So when they're giving those probabilities, it's going to be based on the number of markers that they have looked at. So, yeah, so that's basically what it's based on. So anyone trained in that would come to the same conclusion? Yeah, so they will use particular databases and it actually gets to numbers that get to be so big, like one in a billion.

28:23But it really depends on the number of markers and the population group and so on and so. forth. But you can be pretty happy when it's getting into those really, really high numbers. And lastly, what's on the horizon in the world of DNA? Is there something that's bubbling under the surface that, boy, if this comes out the way we think it is, it's going to be amazing? Or it's more incremental advances than that? So there's loads of incremental advances. Sometimes you get these kind of real sort of step changes. So like with CRISPR, this technology where we're able to cut and paste in our DNA. And I think this is one of the things about genetics.

29:06It's like there's so many different things going on. It's like how can you work out which way it's going to go out and what's the next big thing? There's so many interesting things that are happening in the field. But I think one of the things I kind of think that we really do need to think about is how do we want to use this incredibly powerful technology? because we now have the possibility of doing things like gene editing. And how do we want to use that? So I think possibly the next big thing in genetics is, alongside all the really cool stuff that's happening in genetics, is us as a society thinking about how do we want to use this in the most ethical way?

29:48And I think everybody needs to be part of that conversation. Well, it is remarkable how all of the things that you're talking about related to DNA, you couldn't talk about a couple decades ago because it wasn't around and the advances have been so fast, it's been startling. I've been talking to Turi King. She is one of Britain's leading authorities on DNA and genetic research, and she is author of the book, The Secrets of Our DNA, How Genetics Has Changed the World. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Turi, thank you so much. Thanks, Mike. It's been such a pleasure chatting to you. Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more.

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33:37Nobody wants to be a quitter. From the time where kids were told, never give up, stick it out, finish what you start. And we admire people who persevere against all odds. But here's a question. What if the smartest thing you could do sometimes is quit? Quit a job. Quit a relationship. Quit a goal you've spent years pursuing. Because sticking with something that isn't working doesn't necessarily make you determined or courageous. It might just mean you're stuck. And think about this. Almost every time you say yes to something new, you have to quit or say no to something else. So why is quitting so hard?

34:19And why does it seem to be especially difficult for women? It turns out there's some fascinating research on when to quit, why we resist it, and how walking away can actually make your life better. Here to explain is Lindsay Krauss. For more than 14 years, she was an editor, writer, and producer at the New York Times, and she is author of a book called The Case for Quitting, The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out. Hi, Lindsay. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. Isn't it interesting that quitting is sometimes necessary, it's essential, it's often the right thing to do, and yet it just has this horrible connotation that you're a loser if you quit.

35:07The whole concept of quitting is it's not the American way. You're absolutely right. It tells us that perseverance and quitting are opposites. The perseverance is the superpower of the successful and that quitting is the flaw of the back of the pack. But that's not true at all. If we want to do our best, we really need to learn to quit. And I mean, your example that you just brought up about America is exactly right. It seems like we're the kind of country that, you know, is built on these people that never give up, that stopped at nothing and just kind of fought for what they wanted. But if you look a little deeper, that is true.

35:42But actually, we did a lot of quitting. All of the people that came here, they were leaving behind something else to come from somewhere new. Everyone who spread out across the country to settle it, they were all leaving one thing to find an uncertain new future. And quitting is absolutely part of our DNA, just as much as perseverance is. We just don't read it that way. Well, it seems like one of the big worries about quitting is when do you quit? Because, you know, maybe if you just stick it out a little longer, this will work out. This will be great. And if I quit, then I'll never know. I mean, to that point, there are a lot of ways that we can tell the difference between, say, a temporary setback that requires persistence and a sign that it's time to walk away.

36:25I mean, one good place there is to start focusing on less whether you should quit. because again, quitting involves a lot of uncertainty and involves a lot of fear. Instead, we could think about what are the reasons why we're continuing in the first place? And if we look at those reasons, they're usually much more clear. Are we continuing because we love what we're doing regardless of the outcome? Or are we continuing because we're afraid of confronting what might happen if we stop? If outcomes do matter, another way to think about whether we should keep going is by assessing our progress. Are we continuing despite the fact that we're not getting closer to our goal.

37:02And because again, we're afraid of cutting our losses and trying again. So thinking about why we're continuing can be a great way to decide whether we should keep doing that or stop. Well, my sense is also that perhaps the best person to determine whether I should quit something or not isn't me, because I'm too in it, I'm too close to it, and I'm so not objective about it. I may be just dying to just quit because for all the wrong reasons, I may not really see it as clearly as somebody else might. Yeah, that's absolutely right. If you're thinking about quitting and you're just not sure, it can be really wise to involve your community in a lot of ways, not just to know if you should quit or not.

37:47And you're entirely right that oftentimes people will see these decisions as much more clearly than we're willing to see ourselves because their judgment isn't clouded by the emotion. And again, that fear that we often feel, but we need to involve them for other reasons as well. I mean, our communities are the people that can help us not only kind of soften the losses that may come with quitting, but can also be the pathways to find something new. But do you see, and then maybe this is why you're studying this, is do you think people have a real problem with quitting of not knowing when to let go or it's just some people, or is this a real pervasive problem?

38:25Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely a pervasive problem. It's particularly a challenge for women, I think, but really for anyone who loves a good challenge, who loves to work, who works all the time. Our culture glorifies work and grinding and persistence, and we really shame quitting. We frame it as relenting. And so for the kind of person that really sees that virtue in work, we can really confuse productive hard work with working pointlessly hard. And when we start to confuse that, I mean, we are absolutely the people that can just grind forever instead of deciding that it's time to stop or even just to go a little easier.

39:09Well, my sense is that a lot of people don't quit, that they know they probably should quit, that this isn't working. They just worry that if they do quit, what will other people think? That's entirely right. I mean, when we talk about the fears that we feel when we think about quitting, a huge thing that we fear is judgment. And of course, there's, you know, potential judgment from ourselves in the form of regret. But there's also the fear of judgment from other people. And oftentimes research shows that those fears are unfounded. We imagine that there's the spotlight on us, that every move that we make is examined by everyone and that they're following every single thing that we do and judging that.

39:55And oftentimes that's really only in our mind. Truly, when we want to quit and we decide to do that, it can almost be disappointing because it feels like this momentous decision and we discover that no one cares. And again, we want people to care. We want to feel indispensable. We want to feel like what we do matters. But when you think about how nobody cares nearly as much about what we do as we do, it can actually be quite liberating and an opportunity or an invitation to listen to our own judgment. Well, you know, I cannot remember a time when someone I know has told me that they quit something that I was hugely disappointed or rendered some horrible judgment.

40:35I'm sure I don't care. I mean, people don't care about other decisions because I don't know why they quit or what the whole story is, but that's up to them. It's their life. Absolutely. And I will go back and almost argue against myself here because in the conversations that I've had with other people kind of around this topic, they'll say, well, look at Simone Biles. She dropped out of Tokyo in the Olympics and faced massive judgment. And to that, I would say, yes, she did. But that was sort of a chorus of armchair critics who actually know very little about gymnastics and certainly don't know her and had no stakes in the decision at all.

41:16And so when I say that no one cares, what I should have actually said is that no one who matters cares. The people who actually cared about her health, her well-being, even her performance, her coaches, or even just experts who understand gymnastics, they supported the decision. And so again, you may face a little bit of judgment from people, but they rarely matter. And that can be a source of tremendous confidence as well. But the concern, of course, is always that, you know, people quit things because they're tough, but a lot of things worth doing are tough and that maybe you shouldn't quit yet, that maybe you need to tough it out.

41:56And I don't know how you tell the difference unless you just keep going for a while and, you know, and then decide. Another important point to make is that you don't want to just impulsively quit. You don't want to quit on a bad day. What you want to do, again, is explore and note patterns over time and think about how those patterns correspond to whatever your goal is. And sometimes success doesn't matter. Sometimes you're just doing something because you enjoy it or for other reasons. And that can be enough. So you have to be really honest with yourself about what your goals are, what you're hoping to get out of a situation while you're doing something and make sure that those goals, even if they're kind of incidental to success, that those goals are being met, that you're still enjoying something, that your passion has not become something that you've come to dread, but that you're doing anyway because you feel like you should or even worse, because you feel like you can't quit because you don't want to deal with the disruption involved in saying no.

42:57So kind of disentangling the reasons. We talked earlier in this conversation about instead of asking ourselves, should we quit and reframing that as should I continue? If you kind of disentangle those questions with figuring out what your reasons are for continuing and are they the right reasons or not, that can really help clarify a lot. You said something a moment ago that I think is so profound that don't quit on a bad day. And that is the time most people would really like to quit. This really sucks and I want out. And that's probably the worst time to quit. Yeah. And don't quit on a bad day is advice that an old track coach gave me.

43:38I mean, I am a marathon runner. I have been a track athlete for my entire life. And again, it's really important to remember here that perseverance matters a lot. And what we're looking at here is trying to unpack when perseverance can become pathological or even counterproductive. And so this is quitting for people that are inclined to never give up, that listen to that cultural direction, to keep going, to go harder, to do more. But again, we don't want to just impulsively relent when something gets hard. I mean, that's often when we are on the cusp of having a breakthrough. But if data tells us that our hard work is no longer working, that's when we have to suck it up and do what's hard for people like us, you know, the perseverant hard workers of the world, and call it off so that we can hopefully succeed somewhere else.

44:29I don't know if there have been surveys taken, but I'm curious, you know, when people quit something significant, but they have thought it through and really came to this decision to quit, do they still have some regret? Because it's always the road not taken. It's like no matter what you do, you're not doing something else. You're not persevering. And I wonder where that would have led to. Or you're not taking this new opportunity or this new thing or trying this new other thing. And there's another road not taken. Yeah. So when people think about quitting, we are often really scared that we're going to regret our decision to leave.

45:15But research shows that over the long course of our lives, we actually tend to regret inaction much more than action. And hard as it is, quitting is an action. So it may mean sucking it up and taking the loss, but it also means opening yourself up to new opportunities once you let go of that path that you're ready to leave. And it can be hard to see at the time, but failing to quit really means choosing to continue. So over the long course of our lives, as we look back, people regret that inaction. They regret staying on the course. They regret listening to that fear of, oh, if I quit now, what will I do tomorrow?

45:52What will I do next week? Oftentimes, we don't know the answer to that. But if we don't want to be doing what we're doing now in five years or 10, we've got to cut the cord and take that loss and leave because it's not going to get easier to stop with time. We just get older. So I get that you don't quit on a bad day, but when do you quit? I mean, when does the bell go off that, okay, enough's enough? Because that's where I think people struggle with. They either stay too long or they didn't stay long enough and now they regret because maybe. So I don't know how you find that. Sure. Well, I think, again, you can start thinking about how you're feeling about continuing.

46:33And are you enjoying what you're doing still? Are you rationalizing that your hard work is going to pay off even though all evidence is pointing to the contrary? Are you sticking with something because continuing is comfortable out of inertia rather than because you just hope that someday your life will change and you're hoping that that will just come about? So again, focusing on why you're continuing and if you want the patterns that you're dealing with to still be part of your life in five years, 10, or even as we were just talking about with regret, looking back on the long course of our lives.

47:11If you don't like what you see when you envision that, you've got to ask yourself, if I don't want to keep doing this later, why am I doing it now? Sometimes you may have a good reason, but other times it may mean it's time. One area where some of what you've been talking about seems to not quite line up is in relationships, because relationships are tough and people will judge you if you file for divorce and get divorced. And it may take a lot of work over a long time to fix it. And you might think, well, I don't I just I'm not up for that and quit. But there's a consequence. There's a lot of consequences when it comes to relationships, as opposed to whether or not you should run in a race or something like that.

48:00In the case of relationships, a lot has to do with what are you leaving behind? How much have you invested in this relationship? How important is it to you still? Are you abandoning somebody or are you or is there not that much left of your relationship anymore to preserve? So it really depends on a case by case basis. But so often in relationships, we just slide from the beginning rather than kind of actively deciding that this is something that we want to do. And then all of these investments pile up around it. You know, it stops being, am I going to see you this weekend? But rather what time?

48:37And then you share a Netflix password and a gym membership and then you move in together. And then what else is there to do but get engaged? And then, you know, even if you're having second thoughts, you get married. And so one lesson there is that you want to make these quitting decisions sooner. You want to kind of have these questions with yourself before all the investments pile up. Because I agree, once you're married, it's an entirely different set of questions that should come around. Should I stay or should I leave? Is this relationship really bad for me now? Am I miserable all the time?

49:11Another thing that we have to ask when we're thinking about quitting a relationship that we've been in for a long time or anything else that's really close to us is why do we want to leave? Is it our partner ourselves? Is it the environment that we're in with our partner? Is it the way that we treat each other, even though what we still love about each other is there? And once you identify what it is about the, you know, you asked about marriage. So when you identify what it is about the marriage that you want to leave, you can figure out two things. One is, do I have the control to fix this? And the other question is, how much of this problem lies with me?

49:50Because a lot of times when we quit, we're just looking to escape something that we actually just need to be fixing on our own. Because if we don't fix that, it's going to follow us to whatever we go to next. If you're treating your partner badly, and they are responding to that rationally, which is to get frustrated with you in turn, you may continue those behavior traits in the next relationship and it's going to follow you. It's sort of that phrase, everywhere I go, there I am. And so sometimes in actually going through that decision process about why do I want to quit, we can actually figure out, should we stay, but in a different way?

50:27Well, from what you're saying, it seems that being very intentional about it, really weighing the options of should you or shouldn't you is in itself very rewarding because then you're clear. Yes, you are deciding as opposed to sliding. You are becoming an active player in your life and you're asking yourself important questions about your life and what kind of a person you want to be in it. So quitting may not actually be the answer to whatever it is that you're weighing. But once you go through that question of should I stay, should I go, the answer may be staying, but you're staying with intention.

51:03And maybe you're staying in a different, more positive way than you were staying before. So I think when we reframe quitting as an action, rather than as kind of a bold action, really, and sometimes a courageous action, rather than just the sort of passive giving up, that's when we start to see the power of quitting. Is your sense that people are good at this or not good at this? Well, again, we talked earlier about how sometimes it's better to have somebody else take a look and see because it's hard to see from where you are. Because I generally think of myself as pretty good at deciding when to quit and when not to.

51:44But there have certainly been cases where that was not true. Sure. Well, I think one thing that's interesting there is that I think men are, well, I don't think this research shows that men are actually a lot better at quitting in certain ways than women. Um, women, I mean, you can take the marathon here as an example. Um, I wrote an article for the New York times about the Boston marathon in 2018. That was terrible weather. And as I was watching it, I was like, okay, no one's going to run a good race here, but I suspect that women are going to finish at higher rates than men. Um, because it's a really hard day.

52:23And I asked the Boston marathon and that turned out to be true. And I looked at why and women, when things get hard, they downshare. shift, whereas men start to go for all or nothing. So when you're saying that you're good at quitting, it may be because you're setting your, you have the goal of succeeding or taking the loss. Whereas I think women are much more willing to kind of grind and grind. And the flaw there for women is that in the marathon, there's a finish line, but in life we can grind forever. Well, we all come to that point multiple times in life where we have to decide, are we going to keep going or are we going to quit?

53:02And you bring some insight that helps in that decision-making a lot. Lindsey Krauss has been my guest. She is author of the book, The Case for Quitting, The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Great, Lindsey. Thank you for being here. Thanks so much, Mike. It was wonderful talking with you. Talk again soon.

53:25Have you ever tied your shoes nice and tight only to discover a few minutes later one of the laces has come undone? Well, scientists at UC Berkeley have actually studied this using high-speed cameras to watch what happens to shoelaces as people walk and run. And what they discovered is pretty fascinating. Every time your foot hits the ground, the impact stretches and loosens the knot just a little bit. Meanwhile, as your leg swings forward and backward, the loose ends of the lace whip around, gradually pulling the knot apart. It's a one-two punch, and once the knot starts loosening, it can come completely undone in just a couple of steps.

54:11But here's something useful. There are actually two ways to tie the ordinary shoelace bow. and one creates a stronger knot than the other. A properly tied bow tends to sit across your shoe, while a weaker version often twists and sits more vertically. So if your shoelaces constantly come undone, it may not be the laces. You may simply be tying the weaker version of the knot. That's easy to fix. And that is something you should know. Now, I'm sure you know a lot of people, and I'll bet some of them would enjoy hearing this podcast. So if you wouldn't mind spreading the word, letting somebody, a couple people, let them know about this podcast and suggest they listen, make it easy somehow for them to listen, and then we get more listeners and that helps keep the podcast going.

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