Quitting is considered as a big no no among most ambitious people. But what if the solution is a bad one, is fixating on a bad solution really a good strategy?
Swapnil Devre talks about the importance of not wasting your time on unsolvable problems or problems that just take too much time to solve. He says this isn’t a much talked about the topic since the trend today is about hustling and never giving up attitudes.
Let’s take an example, some people struggle with sales calls. And they take courses to become a good closer. And these courses do work for some but not all are cut out for this. There are some people that are not cut out for hard closing. For them, the best strategy is to find a better product that doesn’t need a hard salesman. If after struggling at sales for a while if you are not happy with the results then find another way. Don’t let your ego get involved in this. There are many ways to sell, a cold approach isn’t the only way. Either find a better product that is easier to sell or find affiliates that will do the sales for you in return for a commission. Whatever it is, be honest with yourself. If you are not getting the results in the timeframe that you anticipated then pivot. There is no shame in pivoting if you are not good at sales then don’t fuss over it. You are avoiding a solution that will work better for you. There is a lost opportunity cost in fixating on bad solutions and that is time. You lose valuable years of your life.
Have you made any such mistakes in life and could you give some examples and how you overcame that?
Plenty said Swapnil Devre, my first biggest bad fixation was Cricket, a sport. I wanted to become a famous Cricket player. I was at it for a year and invested a lot of money into it. But I wasn’t as good as others who had more experience than me. I cannot become more experienced than them. There is a certain age before you should have gained 10000 hours of experience in order to become the best. I was past that age in Cricket. I should have started a few years back.
My next endeavor was in playing guitar. I invested 1 year and 8 hours every day into playing it and I became really good at it. But I was passionate about hard rock. That was a mistake. There isn’t a big enough market in Mumbai for Hard Rock Musicians and I didn’t want to pivot to pop. So the money never came so I pivoted it was hard to quit something that you have heavily invested in. But I pulled the plug on it, it was a mean move especially on my band members. They didn’t like it, which stained our relationships for a while.
But on the bright side If I hadn’t quit the two fields then I would have probably not made it as an entrepreneur. So there is some benefit to quitting the wrong things. It shows you the right path and eliminates all the wrong once for you.
Swapnil Devre said that always assume that what you are doing is wrong and always ask how I can be less wrong. This is a great way to avoid the sunken cost fallacy. You are less likely to get stuck on a bad solution.
Swapnil Devre is the Founder and CEO of Upstage Media. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.