One Accident Can Show You Your Life Clearly, but an Impulsive Quit Usually Ends in Regret
Life's turning points are often not the product of rational weighing but of a single unexpected event that kicks a person out of autopilot; yet research shows an impulsive quit usually ends in regret, and the smartest response is sometimes to stay exactly where you are.
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Half of all quits happen before anyone has thought it through
While reading the turnover literature in graduate school, Anthony Klotz found that quitting is often not a slow, rational weighing process: about half of cases are triggered by a one-off event that makes a person stop and rethink their job. What surprised him more was that these studies almost all focused only on "why people quit" — nobody studied "how people fare after quitting." He had himself been kicked out of autopilot at a lumber yard and at General Mills, so he shifted his research focus to what happens after someone decides to quit or stay.
— Anthony KlotzA DNA test exposed the imbalance between work and family
On the show, Chris Hemsworth took a DNA test and discovered he carries a gene associated with Alzheimer's risk. He called it his greatest fear, because there is a history of the disease in his family; but he also called it a blessing, because he is still young enough to make changes. The shock did not make him overturn his work entirely — it made him realize he was spending more time on work than with his family, so he began adjusting the ratio, giving more time to family and to the work he truly cares about.
— Anthony KlotzRegret after an impulsive quit comes from the next job
Klotz says an impulsive quit is tempting because it instantly reverses the power relationship: normally the company holds the initiative, and the moment you leave, the company needs you. But research shows that unless something genuinely terrible happened, people who quit impulsively mostly regret it afterward. The source of regret is usually not leaving the old job itself — you often have good reason — but pushing yourself into a situation where you "must find the next job immediately," so you hastily accept a new one and end up facing the same problems at the new company.
— Anthony KlotzThe smartest response is sometimes to stay put
Early in his career, Bob Iger was an executive at ABC Sports when the company was acquired by a broadcasting group known for frugality. The way of working changed abruptly, and colleagues around him jumped to glamorous sports agencies. He too considered leaving and went to HR to resign; HR told him to think it through first. He went home, discussed it with his partner, and decided to stay. He later moved with the company into Disney and eventually became CEO and chairman. Klotz says that however one judges his leadership style, from a career standpoint the smartest response to a shock is sometimes precisely to stay put.
— Anthony KlotzYou can solve the problem without quitting, if you speak up
Klotz's friend Jenny worked at a hospital, sharing a large office with a toxic colleague, and her physical and mental state kept deteriorating. Then one day she walked in and, before she could say anything, the other person started making trouble — and she realized she had to do something. She did not quit, and she did not report the colleague; instead she found an empty office and told her boss this was a personality incompatibility and asked to move there. The boss agreed. A few weeks later she found she could also redraw the division of tasks and barely had to deal with the old colleague anymore, and her job satisfaction rebounded sharply.
— Anthony KlotzWhen you speak to your boss, the proposal can't benefit only you
Klotz offers several points for speaking upward: don't bring only a problem, bring a solution; the solution must not benefit only you but also your boss, clients, colleagues or the company, and you have to sell that point clearly; don't use the "good news—bad news—good news" sandwich structure, since research shows it works poorly when raising objections; and if your boss is fairly dominant, packaging the request as a question rather than a demand or suggestion raises the odds of success.
— Anthony KlotzAdults don't lack inspiration — they hit the brakes too early
Arp Dijkstra-Haus cites a classic creativity study: asked "what can a paperclip do," young children score far higher than adults. He explains this as two modes of thinking — divergent thinking is the gas pedal, convergent thinking is the brake. Divergent thinking is innate and highly active in childhood; convergent thinking is learned, intervenes more and more frequently with age, and often intervenes far too early in the creative process. What people call having fewer ideas as they get older is often the brake being hit too early, snuffing out a thought the moment it surfaces.
— Arp Dijkstra-HausMeditation raises the share of subconscious information reaching consciousness
Dijkstra-Haus ran an experiment: first presenting an answer to subjects subliminally (say, the name of a Beatle or the colors of the American flag), then asking a question with multiple possible answers, to see whether they would use the primed answer. The results showed that after 20 minutes of meditation, people used those answers significantly more often than chance level and than under normal conditions; without meditation, they did not. He believes meditation increases the "traffic flow" between consciousness and deep unconscious regions, making subconscious information more likely to surface.
— Arp Dijkstra-HausIn their own words · checked verbatim
often quitting doesn't result from this slow rational decision making process about half the time it results from these one-off events that make a stop and rethink work
Anthony Klotz14:40
It's this really empowering moment where the company doesn't have the power anymore. They kind of need you as a worker, and you're walking away from them.
Anthony Klotz31:09
you impulsively quit, and then you put yourself in a position where I need another job. And so you go out on the job market, need a job quickly, take that next job, and find yourself in the same situation that you were already in, just with a different company.
Anthony Klotz32:11
sometimes the smartest response to jolts that leads to the most career success is actually doing nothing is actually staying put in the wake of a jolt when you're tempted to bolt
Anthony Klotz39:20
divergent thinking is the gas pedal in the car and convergent thinking is the brake
Arp Dijkstra-Haus1:03:24
intuition that is that is not at all informed is is pretty much useless and intuition by people who have a lot of experience can be incredibly useful
Arp Dijkstra-Haus1:25:42
first all this information, then a period of unconscious thought, then a quick intuitive judgment, that's indeed the best way to make a decision
Arp Dijkstra-Haus1:26:43
Figures
| Pat Tillman's salary with the Arizona Cardinals | about $4 million | 24:52 |
| When Pat Tillman left the NFL | played in 2000, decided to leave the following year after 9/11 | 22:49 |
| When Jurgen Klopp announced he was stepping down | November 2024 | 10:32 |
| Length of meditation in the meditation experiment | 20 minutes | 1:10:56 |
| Number of REM sleep episodes per night | about 5 to 6 | 58:20 |
| Eileen's age when she ended the relationship | 62 | 51:46 |
| Time Polly took to walk the French route of the Camino de Santiago | nearly 41 days, about 500 miles | 1:13:05 |
Glossary
- jolt
- A one-off event that kicks a person out of autopilot and forces them to re-examine work and life.
- collateral jolt
- When colleagues or people close to you leave, indirectly prompting you to reconsider whether you should go too.
- nuclear events
- Dan McAdams's term for scenes in a life that stand out like boldface type and bring sudden transformation.
- divergent thinking
- Free-associative creative thinking, like the gas pedal, most active in childhood.
- convergent thinking
- Critical thinking that evaluates feasibility, like the brake, intervening more frequently with age.
- three B's
- bed, bus, bath — the three everyday settings where good ideas are most likely to surface.
How to listen
Suitable for people currently considering quitting a job, changing cities or ending a relationship, as well as managers who lead teams and need to understand how their reports decide to leave.
The listener letters and show-promotion segment from 46:34 to 54:05 can be skipped.