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Knowing When to Quit

Oct 5th 2009Business & Life

Like most sports fanatics in this country, I was glued to the TV tonight watching Brett Favre in a purple uniform take on his old team in their classic green and yellow.  The media hyped it up big time throughout the week, making sure we all knew that Favre has beaten every other NFL team except the Packers.  After a 30-23 win, Favre can now claim victory over every single NFL team during his career.  Wow!

Now that the Vikings are 4-0, all the pundits that said Favre was too old and should have stayed retired are very quiet.  Winning tends to do that to people…validates those who supported you and mutes those who came out so adamantly opposed to you when you made the decision to stay on in the job or keep playing.

But this situation with Brett Favre does bring up a good question…when is it time to quit?

How about this:

  • quit if you no longer have the fire in the belly to do what you used to love doing
  • quit if you no longer have the physical skills to do what you need to do and you can’t compensate for those lack of skills with others that surround you
  • quit if you are sacrificing so much in one area of your life that its no longer worth in the part of your life that you love so much
  • quit if your actions or reactions are causing more harm than good for the rest of the folks on your team
  • quit if your enemies or competitors can use your age, diminishing reactions, weakening strength, or eroding skills against your team
  • quit if you no longer have the ability to motivate your team and raise them to a level of a champion
  • quit if you wake up in the morning and ask yourself, “why in the world am I punishing myself this way?”
  • quit if your heart and mind both say, “I’m through”

Otherwise, go compete and win.  It’s insane to me to ask anyone to give up if they have the skills, the reactions, the mental abilities, and the competitiveness to win in the job they have chosen to compete in.  Equally as important, it’s a tragic loss to the team if a great leader that still has great skills and great passion for the game ends up quitting before he’s through.

Nuff said.

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