Ep 719 | Maybe You Should Quit (REPLAY)

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today we are going to actually revisit a topic I covered probably, I don't know, a couple hundred podcasts ago. But rather than replay that particular podcast, I wanted to record it again as I think there's some new information, new insight that I have around this particular topic. This topic is about quitting. It's about quitting and how maybe you ought to quit. Now, that sounds like a really strange topic. A lot of what we talk about tends to be strange, at least at first. But it's one that's been on my mind because still in so many industries with so many of our No Days Off Nation members and entrepreneurs struggling. Like, it's hard out there. It's hard in real estate. It's hard for many economically right now. Uh, it's tough to run businesses when there's a lot of uncertainty and just some challenges, again, in different industries. Now, there are certainly some industries that are flourishing. And this may not apply to you, but I think for most of us, when it gets hard, while we're taught to be resilient and persevere and all of that, you know, in the back of your mind, you might think, you might be thinking to yourself, gosh, maybe I should, I should consider tapping out. I should consider something new, going down a different path. And I don't have a problem with that. You're human. So, I want to talk a little bit about quitting and when it may be right. However, stick with me because by the end of this, there might be a little bit of a twist in terms of whether it's actually right to quit. So, this topic of quitting, I mean, again, I have a lot of experience right now in working with so many entrepreneurs who I know are having a tough time. And they're asking themselves, well, should I hang up the cleats? Now, why do most people consider quitting? Well, there's lots of reasons. Some reasons that I typically hear, well, sometimes it's blaming other people, other situations, a market, these things that stand in the way. So, we blame these things and we're like, "Well, I got to quit. I can't overcome that." Sometimes we have no clearly defined purpose. We've not set any goals. In other words, we don't even know where we're going. And absent some sort of plan, we're just hoping for the best. And when the best doesn't work out, we may feel like quitting. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to take shortcuts and those shortcuts don't work, or the opposite, we may take the long road and that time that it's taking is starting to wear on us personally, maybe wearing on relationships. And so people tend to, to quit. Sometimes the burdens of the past start to overwhelm you. Maybe at times you have illusions of early success, but you haven't really succeeded. And then you, you really find that that stagnation, that lack of growth, starts to pay its toll. Lastly, some people quit because they just lack accountability. They lack a support group. They lack an environment that supports, again, the path that they're trying to go down. Now, that's why most people quit. When should you actually consider quitting? When should you consider, you know, that as a viable option for you? And most would tell you right now, they jump out and say, "Well, never." never quit. I don't know, I got a slightly different take on that and I want to share it with you. If I was contemplating maybe hanging it up, maybe calling it quits, I would ask myself a few really important questions. The first question I would ask myself is, do I still want to achieve this goal? Let's make believe I've set a goal. Do I still want to achieve it? Now, better— maybe a better way to frame this particular question, uh, early on when you decided you wanted to pursue this, this big goal, maybe it's build this business or whatever it may be, you likely had a vision as to what that would feel like, look like when you achieved it. You thought, I'm gonna have X dollars in my bank account, or I'm gonna impact you know, this individual, these individuals, my family's going to be doing these things and feeling this way. I'm going to have this certain feeling around accomplishment. I'm going to expand it beyond just this goal. You had this really, really big vision. And my guess is that vision was so compelling that you chose to go down this path. What I want you to do is close your eyes and go back to that time. When you made that decision and you were thinking around that goal, how did it feel when you pictured yourself reaching it? Maybe even go back into some of your texts or emails and see what you were writing or you're saying to others about your excitement and why you were going down this route. Now, once you've done that, I want to ask you, when you review it and you think around it, Does it still give you chills? Does it still bring excitement? Does the hair on the back of your neck still stand up? Again, do I still want to achieve this goal? I start there. Number 2, before I would quit, I would ask myself, have I explored every option? Have I turned over every stone? Have I looked at every possible path to make this viable? Have I made the hard decisions necessary to get to where I want to go? Am I saying yes to the right things and no to some other things that haven't been serving me? Have I sought additional guidance? Did I look to bring in a partner? Did I really explore every single option? Because before anybody should quit anything, They should make sure, they should make certain that they've explored every possible path to staying in the game. Because if you don't, what's going to happen is months or years, maybe even decades down the road, you're going to have regret. You're going to say, damn, what if I did this? Or what if I did that? Now, I don't want anybody here having regret. So it begs the question, have you explored every single option. So number 1, do I still want to achieve this goal? Number 2, have I explored every option? Now, question 3 I would ask: what do my mentors think? All of us have some important people in our, in our lives. Maybe it's a formal mentor or coach, or maybe it's informal, just people whose opinion I trust, individuals who have influenced my thinking and my behavior, people I've I've consoled and/or I've consulted around specific paths. What would those people think about you potentially quitting? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe they would actually advise you that this isn't the path anymore. But odds are, when you were sharing your vision, when you were asking your questions, when you were displaying that passion in the conversations with them, They probably saw some really, really big opportunity. And my guess, if they're an objective observer, is that they're going to ask you some questions that make you reconsider the position. But what, what do your mentors think? Question 4 I would ask, and it's a really big question I would ask you, and it's probably the most important one. Are you still willing to become the person that you need to become in order to achieve the goal or mission? Think about that one for a moment. Are you willing to become the person that you need to be? Are you still willing to become the person that you need to be in order to achieve the mission? It's a really big question because the reality is that you have to become a different version of you today to get to where you want to go. If you're a company selling 100 widgets and your goal is to sell 200 widgets, there is a different version of you that must exist to get to 200. You've got to have different habits, different leadership qualities, different skills, different communication style. Different operating style in terms of time management and all that goes along with that. You've got to actually become and morph into a 200 widget type of person. And just like when you get to 200, if you want to get to 400, you actually have to reinvent yourself again. So I would ask you, if you are contemplating quitting, does it have anything to do with some of the things we've already mentioned? Or maybe it has something to do with your unwillingness to become the person you need to be in order to achieve that mission. Now, again, if you're here at No Days Off, if you're an entrepreneur looking to build big things, my guess is that in the spirit of No Days Off, you are looking to become, become a new version of you. You're looking to improve every single day. That is what we talk about here nonstop. How do you get a little bit better every single day? You, you still willing to, to commit to that? My guess is you are. You know how I know? Because you're listening to this podcast today. Now here's what's interesting about becoming the person you must become. Recognize that your current self is actually at odds with that future version of you. What do I mean? Your current self may be comfortable, maybe content, maybe you're having, you know, some degree of success. It might not be financial, hence why you might be considering, say, quitting the business. But you're, you know, you might be doing just okay. Recognize that again, in becoming the new version of you, you've got to get pretty uncomfortable, right? You've got to start learning new things and doing things differently. That future version, that new version of you, is fighting with that current version of you that's content. So are you willing to become that person to get to where you want to go? Again, I believe you do, otherwise you wouldn't be here today. So those are my, my big 4 when you're thinking about quitting. Now, what's the— what's the— I mentioned at the very start, you you know, there's gonna be a little twist. Well, what's the twist here? When you work yourself through these 4 questions, do I still wanna achieve this goal? Have I explored every option? What do my mentors think? And then lastly, am I still willing to become the person I need to be to get to where I wanna go? When you work yourself through those 4 questions, I can almost guarantee you that quitting is no longer gonna make sense. So, here's my action item for you today. Whether or not you're looking to quit, I think you could still do this option, I'm sorry, do this action item, or these action items, I would ask you to sit down and ask yourself, what do I have to learn? What must I learn? What haven't I learned yet that would help me get from point A to point B? I'd also ask you to, you know, sit in front of a whiteboard and ask yourself, what do I have to stop doing? What am I doing right now that's not serving this mission? What do I have to stop doing? Next, I want you to get on that whiteboard and ask yourself, what new habits must I create? What relationships am I missing that I need to add? And then lastly, what got me to where I am today but won't get me to where I intend to go? So an episode full of questions for you to sit and contemplate I think that if you work through this filter, these questions that I just gave you, you're gonna come away with some amazing takeaways. And odds are, you're not looking to quit. You're actually going to be a little bit more focused. You're gonna have a bit more clarity. And you may even be a bit more energized. So, as we conclude today's episode, again, take no days off, get a little bit better every single day. And as I've said many, many times, You got to get weird. What do I mean when I say that? You want to have different success or different accomplishments than the status quo. In order to do that, you've got to do things different than the status quo. And by definition, that makes you weird. So, I always say, get weird. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.