Taste and Quit

”I quit shit all the time.”

It’s the best advice I’ve gotten in years.

It came from a good friend — a world champion practical shooter and instructor. Classic A-type. You don’t reach what he does without being obsessed to the point of perfection. He’s trained civilians, law enforcement, and Tier One units around the world.

And he quits constantly.

That’s the part people miss. Quitting is how he tests. He runs an idea, a theory, a new method — on shooting, on whatever else catches him — and if it works, he keeps it. If it doesn’t, he drops it and moves on. No second thought. He never quits the core commitments of his life. Everything else is fair game. That’s how he got where he is: not by gripping every interest to the death, but by tasting as many as he could and walking away from the ones that didn’t earn their place.

I know that’s not the advice you expected.

But it’s true. And it’s the opposite of everything modern society and the influencers preach. I wish I’d learned it decades ago. It would have saved me time, effort, and mental bandwidth.

Time is finite. So why keep doing things you don’t like?

I’m not talking about responsibilities. I’m not talking about finishing what you started — especially a commitment you made to yourself, your family, your organization, or someone else. Those you honor. I’m talking about the optional things. The ones you choose. You make time for them, you taste them, and you find out. If they’re not for you, quit. Give that time to something that is.

I tell my kids the same thing: taste things. Find out what you like and what you don’t. The only way to do that is to try a lot of them. No spouse, no friend, no family member — and no AI — will figure that out for you. It has nothing to do with money or prestige.

It takes a childlike curiosity. That’s the hard part. It fades as you get older, and I catch myself working to keep mine alive. But that curiosity is the engine. It’s how you find what you’re good at, what you love, what you can’t stand — at forty, at fifty, at sixty, and past it.

To taste and quit is part of being human.

So the next time a guru tells you to never quit, remember it isn’t true.

Go. Taste. Quit. Until you find what works for you.