Winners Never Quit? Well, Yes, They Do By ALINA TUGEND [View All]

[Demeter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/business/16shortcuts.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin


Watching the superhuman feats of the Olympic athletes this week, I’ve admired the dedication and single-minded focus they exhibit. I think about how maybe if I had just worked harder — much harder — at gymnastics when I was young, I could have reached that lofty goal (conveniently forgetting how ill-suited I was to the sport because of my great fear of falling on my head).

Olympians embody one of the great clichés about quitting: “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” My athletic career, on the other hand, is summed up by the other platitude about quitting: “You’ve gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”

Throughout life, we pretty much get those two contradictory messages about quitting. In general, quitting is perceived as bad. A quitter is a loser or, even worse, a traitor — someone who doesn’t hang in when the going gets tough, someone who lets her team down. Quit once, and it becomes a habit.

“Americans have been brainwashed by Vince Lombardi,” said Seth Godin, author of the book “The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).” (Portfolio, 2007). Lombardi coined the “quitters never win” quote.

Winners do quit all the time, Mr. Godin says. “They just quit the right stuff at the right time."

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