Knowing when to quit

Knowing When to Quit

How letting go becomes the start of something better.

We live in a culture obsessed with persistence. “Never give up,” they say. Grit, hustle, endurance—these words are etched into the identity of every entrepreneur. But what we often fail to hear is the other, quieter wisdom: know when to walk away.

We humans cling. To business ideas that won’t take off. To relationships that drain us. To projects that eat our time and energy without giving anything back. Why? Because we’ve invested in them. Emotionally. Financially. Mentally. And that investment clouds our judgment. It’s what psychologists call the sunk cost fallacy—the mistaken belief that the more you’ve put into something, the more you must keep going.

But the truth is simple: what’s spent is spent. The hours, money, and energy you poured in won’t come back. What matters is what you do next. Clinging to the wrong thing means saying no to what might actually work.

Start Small. Listen. Let Go.

The best way to build anything today—whether a business, a brand, or a life—is to stay nimble. The economy is too fast-moving. The market, too unpredictable. The world, too complex for long-term rigidity.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Start small. Forget perfection. Build something minimal. Test it. Talk to real people. The best ideas emerge from real-world friction—not from spreadsheets or strategy decks.

• Fail quickly. You only have to win once. Each misstep is data. Walking away isn’t weakness—it’s progress. It’s the courage to say: “This path isn’t it. I’ll take the insight and try something else.”

• See everything as a test. This mindset removes ego. It lets you detach from outcomes and focus on what matters: feedback, learning, iteration.

My Mistake at råbowls®

At råbowls, I made this mistake firsthand. In 2020, we decided to go fully vegan. It sounded noble—and in some ways, it was. But the idea came from my business partner, and I had my doubts. Still, we went all in. Changed our packaging, our brand voice, our digital identity. We became “the vegan place.”

And immediately, we lost a portion of our customer base. Not because they were anti-vegan. But because they wanted choice. Our own team—people who served customers daily—told us: “People are asking for flexibility.” But we ignored them. We were clinging. Clinging to a decision we had already printed on bags, menus, and windows. Changing course felt like failure. Like waste.

Only years later, in 2024, after I stepped back into frontline sales and personally spoke with dozens of customers, did I realize: we were building around an idea, not around demand. We were loyal to our own ego—not to our market.

That shift—letting go of the “vegan-only” identity and allowing for ethically sourced chicken options—was not a loss. It was a lesson. And it gave us room to grow again.

The Real Work: Letting Go

Letting go isn’t about defeat. It’s about honesty. It’s about growth. It’s about allowing the truth of your experience—feedback, results, intuition—to be more important than the illusion of consistency.

As Amy Edmondson once wrote: When we avoid failure, we also avoid discovery. The only way to succeed in any endeavor worth trying is to be willing to experiment. To try new things. To fail forward. 

That’s what Building & Being is all about. We build. We break. We listen. We adapt. And sometimes, we quit. Not because we’ve failed. But because we’ve finally begun to understand.